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SECRETS OFi 



MENTAL il 



SUPREMACY i 



BY 




W. R. C. LATSON, M.D, 



Price, $1.00 



L. N. FOWLER & CO . 

7 Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circas, 

London, E C. 



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PUBLISHED BY 

THE ELIZABETH TOWNE CO., 
HoLYOKE, Mass. 



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COPYRIGHT, SEPTEMBER 9, 1913. 

BY 

ELIZABETH TOWNE. 



©CI.A354212 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. Introduction 5 

II. Mind and its Material 7 

III. Training OF THE Perspective Faculties.. 23 

IV. Memory and How to Develop It 41 

V. Association of Ideas 61 

VI. Imagination and How to Cultivate It.. 81 

VII. How TO Concentrate THE Attention. .. . 99 

VIII. Psycho-Physical Development 117 

IX. The Lost Arts op Childhood 129 



My mind to me a kingdom is. — 

Epictetus. 
The mind's the measure of the 

man. — Watts. 
As a man thinketh in his heart, 

so is he. — Jesus. 
The man does not contain the 

mind: the mind contains the 

man. — Socrates. 
In the universe there is nothing 

great but man: in the man 

there is nothing great but 

mind. — Aristotle, 



I. 

INTRODUCTION. 




N the brief articles which 
will make up this series 
my object will be to pre- 
sent in the shortest, 
plainest, and most prac- 
tical manner methods 
which, in my experience and that of 
many others who have been more or 
less under my influence, have seemed 
to be conducive to increased mental 
efficiency. 

It is said that there is no royal road 
to learning; and while in a sense this 
is true, it is also true that, in all things, 
even in mind training, there is a right 
way and a wrong way — or rather there 
is one right way, and there are a thou- 
sand wrong ways. 

Now, after trying, it seems to me, 
most of the wrong ways, I have found 



IN TROD UCTION. 

what I believe to be the right way; and 
in these articles I shall try to expound 
it to you. You need not expect an 
essay on psychology or a series of dis- 
sertations upon the ^^faculties of the 
mind'^ ; for there will be nothing of the 
kind. On the other hand, I shall, so 
far as possible, avoid text-book terms 
and the text-book tone — both of which 
are quite absurd and quite futile. I 
shall try to give you bare facts. I shall 
try to give you plain directions, 
stripped of all verbal and pseudo-scien- 
tific flummery, for the acquisition of 
mental activity and mental supremacy. 

W. R. C. Latson, M.D. 

New York City. 



11. 




MIND AND ITS MATERIAL. 

IRST of all, before you 
are able to think at all, 
you must have some- 
thing to think about. You 
must have some mental 
^^stock in trade/^ And 
this mental stock in trade you can gain 
only through the senses. The appear- 
ance of a tree, the roar of the ocean, the 
odor of a rose, the taste of an orange, 
the sensation you experience in han- 
dling a piece of satin — all these are so 
much material helping to form your 
stock of mental images— ^^the content 
of the consciousness,^' as the scholastic 
psychologists call it. 

Now, all these millions and millions 
of facts which make up our mental stock 
in trade — ^the material of thought — are 



SECRETS OF 

gained through the senses, sight, hear- 
ing, smell, taste, touch, and so on. 

Value of the Perceptions. 

In a recent article in a leading 
French scientific journal, a well-known 
scientist. Dr. A. Peres, has presented 
some ideas which are so thoroughly in 
accord with my own observations ex- 
tending over many years, that I yield 
to the temptation to quote. Dr. Peres 
first makes note of modern degeneracy 
in this respect. I append a free trans- 
lation of a few extracts which seem to 
me especially worthy of attention: — 

^^ ^Have we naught but arms and 
legs? Have we not also eyes and ears? 
And are not these latter organs neces- 
sary to the use of the former? Exer- 
cise then not the muscles only, but the 
senses that control them.' Thus was 
a celebrated philosopher wont to ex- 
press himself. Nevertheless when we 
measure acuteness of vision we find 
that it is becoming weaker; hardness 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

of hearing is on the increase ; we suffer 
daily from lack of skill in workmen, 
in domestics, in ourselves; as to taste 
and smell, they are used up — thus do 
the inevitable laws of atavism act. 

'^The trouble is that, despite Rous- 
seau^s objurgations, we have always 
paid too little attention to the hygiene 
and education of the senses, giving all 
our care to the development of physical 
strength and vigor ; so that the general 
term ^physical education' finally has 
assumed the restricted meaning of 
^muscular education/ 

^^The senses, which put us in contact 
with exterior objects, have nevertheless 
a primordial importance. ... So 
great is their value that it is the inter- 
est and even the duty of man to pre- 
serve them as a treasure, and not to 
do anything which might derange their 
wonderful mechanism.'^ 

The length and exactness of the 
sight, the skill and sureness of the 
hand, the delicacy of the hearing, are 



SECRETS OF 

of value to artist and artisan alike by 
the perfection and rapidity of work 
that they insure. Nothing embar- 
rasses a man so trained; he is, so to 
speak, ready for anything. His culti- 
vated senses have become for him tools 
of universal use. The more perfect 
his sensations, the more justness and 
clearness do his ideas acquire. The 
education of the senses is the primary 
form of intellectual education. 

^^The influence of training on the 
senses is easily seen. The adroit 
marksman never misses his aim; the 
savage perceives and recognizes the 
slightest rustling; certain blind per- 
sons know colors by touch; the preci- 
sion of jugglers is surprising; the 
gourmet recognizes the quality of a 
wine among a thousand others; odor 
is with chemists one of the most sensi- 
tive reactions. 

^The senses operate in two ways, 
either passively, when the organ, solely 
from the fact that it is situated on the 

10 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

surface of the body, and independently 
of the will, is acted upon by exterior 
bodies; or actively, when the organ, 
directed and excited by the will, goes, 
so to speak, in advance of the body to 
receive the impression. Passively, we 
see, hear, touch, smell ; actively, we ob- 
serve, listen, feel, sniff. By the effect 
of the attention and by arranging our 
organs in certain ways, our impres- 
sions become more intense. . • . 

^^The impressions made by exterior 
objects on the sense-organs, the nerves 
and the brain, are followed by certain 
mental operations. These two things 
are often confounded. We are in the 
habit of saying that our senses often 
deceive us; it would be more just to 
recognize that we do not always inter- 
pret correctly the data that they fur- 
nish us. The art of interpretation 
may be learned. . . . 

^^The intuitive, concrete form given 
nowadays to education contributes to 
the training of the senses by develop- 

n 



SECRETS OF 

ing attention, the habit of observa- 
tion ; but this does not suffice. To per- 
fect the senses and make each of them, 
in its own perceptions, acquire all pos- 
sible force and precision, they must be 
subjected to special exercises, appro- 
priate and graded. A new gymnastic 
must thus be created in all its details.'^ 

There are, of course, a certain num- 
ber of ^^specific'^ or racial impressions 
and tendencies that come down through 
what is called heredity; but these are 
merely instincts and impulses, and 
while they have an influence upon the 
person's character and habits of 
thought, they do not, in themselves, 
provide actual material for thought. 

If you can imagine a person who 
was blind and deaf, who could not 
smell or taste or feel or move ; he would 
be quite unable to think, for he would 
have in his mind nothing about which 
to think. The material of thought, 
the mental stock in trade, is gained 
through the senses ; and in any rational 

12 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

effort to train the mind we must begin 
by training the senses — the percep- 
tions, as they are more accurately 
called, — so that we may see, hear, 
smell, taste, and feel with more preci- 
sion and keenness. Trained percep- 
tions are the very foundation of all 
mental power. 

Our system of training for mental 
supremacy will begin, then, with a 
brief study of the perceptions, or 
senses, and the methods by which we 
may gain the power of seeing more 
clearly, listening more intently^ of 
feeling more delicately, and, in general, 
of developing the perceptive powers. 

Memory and Its Uses. 

But the perceptions are of little value 
unless we remember what we have per- 
ceived. You may have read all the 
wise books ever written, you may have 
traveled the wide world over; you may 
have had all kinds of interesting and 
unusual experiences; but — unless you 

13 



SECRETS OF 

can remember what you have read, what 
you have seen, and what you have done 
— ^you will have no real use of it all. 
You will have gained no mental ^'stock 
in trade,^^ no material by the employ- 
ment of which you may hope to achieve 
mental supremacy. It will be neces- 
sary, then, for us to study not only 
methods of developing power of percep- 
tion, but the means by which percep- 
tion may be retained and recalled at 
will. 

The Power op Associating 
Memories. 

But the memory itself is not enough. 
I have known people of unusual powers 
of memory who could not talk, write, 
or think well — who were like "the 
bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, 
with loads of learned humor in his 
head''; but who, in spite of all their 
experience and their recollection of it, 
had nothing to write, nothing to say. 

So — memory is not enough. One 

14 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

must have the power of putting memo- 
ries together — of analyzing, compar- 
ing, contrasting, and associating memo- 
ries — until the entire mass of memo- 
ries, which form the ^^content of the 
consciousness,^^ is wrought into one 
splendid, homogeneous whole — a mass 
of images, each one of which is inti- 
mately connected with many others, 
and all of which are under instant com- 
mand of the central sovereign — the 
will. 

It will be necessary, then, to give 
special attention to this most impor- 
tant matter of analyzing, comparing, 
and grouping mental images. Of all 
the activities of the mind this faculty, 
called "the power of association,'^ is the 
one most directly conducive to what is 
generally called "a brilliant mind/' 

Imagination and Judgment. 

The possession of trained percep- 
tions, of a retentive memory and great 
powers of association are of enormous 

15 



SECRETS OF 

value; but only when combined with 
another faculty — imagination ; and im- 
agination is merely the power of recom- 
bining certain memories in such a 
fashion that the combination is new. 
Imagination is a faculty of the highest 
possible importance. Every splendid 
achievement, every invention, every 
business enterprise, every great poem, 
or book or picture, has been not only 
conceived but completed in imagination 
before it became actualized in fact. 

And then it is necessary to be able 
to compare the mental pictures, gath- 
ered by the perceptions, remembered 
and classified by memory and associa- 
tion, so as to determine the relation of 
these memories to each other and their 
application to other ideas or mental 
images. And this valuable faculty of 
the mind is called judgment. 

Necessity for Concentration. 

Now, in order to do well in any one 
of the things of which I have been writ- 

16 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

ing, it is necessary that the entire mind 
should be engaged upon that one thing. 
To do anything well one must do only 
that thing at that time. And this is 
particularly true of the action of the 
mind. The focusing of the entire 
power of the mind upon one thing is 
commonly known as concentration or 
^^the power of attention/^ 

So essential is this power of concen- 
trating the entire mind upon the task 
in hand that it is not too much to say 
that no great degree of mental power 
can ever be gained without concentra- 
tion. So in our study of the practical 
methods by which mental supremacy 
may be achieved, we shall pay special 
attention to the development of this 
invaluable faculty. 

But in order to do anything with the 
mind (or with the body either, for that 
matter) one must choose, must wish 
to do that thing. And this choice, this 
decision to do something, is called the 
will. The power to choose quickly and 

17 



SECRETS OF 

decisively and to act vigorously upon 
that choice is a rather rare thing. He 
who has that power is said to have a 
strong will. 

This question of will and its develop- 
ment is most important. The great 
difference between men — between 
strong men and weaklings, between 
the honored and the disregarded, be- 
tween the masters and the serfs — is 
will. A man of strong, unfaltering 
will is sure to succeed even if his abili- 
ties are mediocre ; but a man of weak 
will, no matter what his abilities, is 
not likely to achieve either success or 
honor among men. 

As a great psychologist has said: 
'The education of the will is really of 
far greater importance than that of 
the intellect.^' And again: 'Without 
this [will] there can be neither inde- 
pendence, nor firmness, nor individual- 
ity of character.^' Ik Marvel says: 
''Resolve is what makes a man mani- 
fest. . . . Will makes men giants.'^ 

18 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

The will, like any other mental faculty, 
may be highly developed by training; 
and this, with many practical exercises, 
also we will take up in its proper place. 

Importance of the Social 
Faculties. ^ 

The above brief outline of the men- 
tal powers embraces those which any 
one may develop and use without help 
from or association with other people. 
The highest powers of the mind, how- 
ever, or at any rate, the most impres- 
sive powers of the mind, can be devel- 
oped only through contact with others 
— through social intercourse. 

A man might have miraculously keen 
perceptions, perfect memory, splendid 
imagination, infallible judgment, in- 
domitable will — he might have all of 
these; and yet he would miss the 
rewards of mental supremacy unless 
he were capable of dealing with other 
people — unless he were socially accom- 
plished. 

19 



SECRETS OF 

In our efforts to train the powers of 
the mind, therefore, it will be neces- 
sary to make a study of some of the 
principles affecting our relations with 
other people; and so we shall in the 
same practical and straightforward 
way discuss sympathy, adaptability, 
and self-command. The important 
question of verbal expression as applied 
to both speech and writing will also 
receive special attention. 

Mental Action a Unit. 

In conclusion you must not forget 
that, although I speak of the various 
mental acts as if they were separate, 
this is done only for convenience of 
discussion and description. As a mat- 
ter of fact the mind is one thing — a 
unit. All the various ^^faculties'^ act 
together constantly. One cannot re- 
member what an oak tree looks like 
unless he has carefully observed an 
oak tree. He cannot imagine an oak 
tree unless he remembers it. He can- 

20 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

not judge of the difference between an 
oak tree and a maple tree unless he 
can imagine a picture of the two side 
by side. And he cannot do any one of 
these things without attention; nor 
again can he concentrate his attention 
without an act of will. 

So we see that the various acts of 
the mind, perception, memory, imagi- 
nation, judgment, attention, and will, 
are inextricably interdependent — and 
that one act involves all the rest. 

Happily this makes our task all the 
easier and more interesting. In this 
series I shall begin by giving you some 
plain practical advice as to the devel- 
opment of the perceptive powers — the 
ability to see, hear, feel, taste, and 
smell more efficiently. But with every 
moment of practice such as I advise 
you will also be developing a more 
exact and acute memory, a finer and 
more expansive imagination, a greater 
power concentration, and a stronger 
will. When we come to discuss the 

21 



SECRETS OF 

cultivation of the will power the exer- 
cises will require the use of the per- 
ceptions, the memory, the imagination, 
and other faculties. So, you see, in 
developing the mind in any one phase 
of its activity you are, at the same time 
and by the same act, adding to the 
power and usefulness of the entire 
mind. 



22 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 



III. 

TRAINING OF THE PERCEPTIVE 
FACULTIES. 

Man is the eyes of things. — Hindoo 
Proverb. 

I HAT far-seeing genius, 
Goethe, once said that 
he regarded himself as 
the center of all phenom- 
ena, a sort of focus to 
which converged every- 
thing in the universe, out of which 
came — Goethe. He also claimed that 
the real standard for all things in life 
was simply the mass of sensations 
that were appreciable to the human 
senses. 

In other words, Goethe understood 
perfectly the now widely recognized — 
and widely ignored — educational prin- 
ciple that all mental activity is based 

23 




SECRETS OF 

upon the perceptions — upon the things 
we see and hear and feel and taste and 
smell. 

As well might you try to build a 
house without wood or bricks or stone 
or mortar, as to try to think without 
a good ^^stock in trade^^ of impressions, 
images, and memories gathered by the 
senses and the perceptions. 

Blurred Mental Pictures. 

One of the never failing marks of 
the common mind, the untrained, inef- 
ficient mind, is that the mental pic- 
tures it contains are confused, blurred, 
inexact. A person with such a mind 
will tell you that an auto car just 
passed him on the road. ^^Was it a 
big, red car?'' you ask. Well, he does 
not quite know. It might have been 
red, and yet he guesses it was black; 
possibly it was gray. How many peo- 
ple were in it? Three or four or five 
— four, he thinks. Ask him to give 
you an outline of a book he has read 

24 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

or a play he has seen, and he is equally 
helpless. And so on. 

Such a person is the typical ineffi- 
cient. You will find thousands of 
these inefficients filling unimportant 
places in shops and offices. And even 
the trivial duties of such positions they 
are unable to perform properly. They 
cannot read a line of shorthand notes 
and be sure of its meaning; they can- 
not add a column of figures and be 
certain of the result without repeated 
checkings. Such unfortunates are the 
^^flotsam and jetsam'^ of the commer- 
cial world — -the unfit who, in the strug- 
gle for existence, must necessarily be 
crowded out by those whose mental 
processes are more positive and more 
exact. 

The extent to which the perceptions 
can be developed is almost incredible. 
I know personally a bank teller who 
can detect a counterfeit coin without 
a glance at it, judging only by weight, 
feeling, and ring. Another man of 

25 



SECRETS OF 

my acquaintance makes a large salary 
merely by his ability to judge tea 
through its flavor — a ^'tea taster/^ I 
know an orchestra conductor who, in 
the full fortissimo of his sixty piece 
band, will detect a slight error of any 
one performer. I could give many 
other instances within my own experi- 
ence of remarkable powers of trained 
perception. 

The Perceptions Are Easily 
Trained. 

For the encouragement of those who 
are aware that they do not get the best 
possible service from their senses and 
perceptions — that they do not see all 
there is to be seen, hear exactly and 
distinctly and so on — for the benefit 
of these I may say at once that the 
senses and perceptions are easily 
trained. A month or two of discipline 
such as I am about to describe will 
show most marked and gratifying de- 
velopment. In most cases a few 

26 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

months^ training is all that is neces- 
sary; for the habit of close observa- 
tion is soon formed, and once formed 
no further thought is required. The 
matter takes care of itself. 

The Perceptions op Children. 

First of all, a word about the senses 
and perceptions of children. Just here 
is one of the grievous defects of our 
defective school system. It practically 
ignores the fact that the child develops, 
not through reasoning, but through 
observation and activity. The child 
observes everything. His senses are 
active and acute. Childhood is the 
time to accumulate observations and 
experiences; later they will form the 
material for thought and general devel- 
opment. 

The child should be encouraged to 
perceive and to remember. All the 
methods which I am about to describe 
are applicable to children of less than 
ten years old. The more elaborate 

27 



SECRETS OF 

and far ranging the mass of percep- 
tions are, memories which the child 
carries over from infancy and child- 
hood into youth and adult age, the 
greater, other things being equal, will 
be his intellectual possibilities. 

Most of Us Are Sensorily Starved. 

Most of us are grossly deficient in 
mental images. At a test made not 
long ago in Boston eighty per cent, of 
the children had no idea what a bee- 
hive was like, over half of them had 
no conception of a sheep, and over 
nine tenths had no notion of the ap- 
pearance or nature of growing wheat. 
Of course they knew of other things 
which the country bred child would not 
know; but fancy the loss in the imag- 
ination of one to whom the following 
lines arouse no vision of a pure, rustic 
matutinal scene: — 

"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn. 
The swallow twittering from the straw- 
built shed, 

28 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly 
bed/' 

The Great Secret of Sense 
Training. 

The great secret of a true develop- 
ment of the perceptions is discrimina- 
tion — the realization of differences. 
To the savage a sound is a sound; to 
the musician it is excruciating discord 
or exquisite harmony. To the musi- 
cian a little depression in the ground, 
a bent twig, a turned leaf — they are 
nothing; to the savage they mean food, 
an enemy, safety, or danger. In the 
printed pages the unlettered boor sees 
only foolish black marks on white 
paper; but in those black marks the 
man of education sees that which 
makes his heart beat faster, his eyes 
swim with tears — which tells him 
secrets of life the clodhopper will never, 
never know. The differences are in the 
trained or untrained perceptions. 

Most of the exercises which I shall 

29 



SECRETS OF 

describe are quite simple — many, per- 
haps, will seem trivial. But remem- 
ber, as a great educator has said: 
^^The . . . point in education is 
the power to attend to things which 
may be in themselves indifferent by 
arousing an artificial feeling of inter- 
est/^ 

So the first exercise is quite simple 
— simple, but not easy. Try it and see. 

Take any object you like — a book, 
a pen, a pair of scissors. Lay it on 
the table before you. Then take pen- 
cil and paper and describe it. Simply 
tell what you see. Can you? I doubt 
it. Tell its dimensions, weight, color, 
form, markings, lettering, origin, uses, 
possibilities, shortcomings. See how 
fully you can write about the object. 
The result will probably noirplease you. 
You will find that you have not nearly 
the powers of expression which you 
supposed you possessed. But — it is 
good training; and with practice your 
powers will grow rapidly. 

30 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

You can do the same thing out of 
doors. Look at a mountain peak, the 
ocean, a horse, a bird. If you think 
for a moment there is nothing to write 
about these things read up *Toem in 
the Valley of Chamouni,^^ Byron's 
splendid passage beginning ^^RoU on, 
thou deep and dark blue ocean, rolV 
the superb poem in the book of Job 
describing the horse, Shelley's ^^Sky- 
lark,'' and so on. James Whitcomb 
Riley has said : ^There is ever a song 
somewhere, my child.'' And to find 
the material for the song it is neces- 
sary only to look with refined and edu- 
cated perception — to look trying to see 
all the various sides, all the many 
phases of the object looked at. In the 
same way you should study also many 
other natural objects — autumnal tints, 
frost marks, snowflakes, trees, both 
their general form and the shape of 
their leaves, all the common flowers. 
Last of all, and in many respects most 
practically important of all, make it 

31 



SECRETS OF 

a habit to observe closely the human 
face. Try to recognize and discrimi- 
nate the signs of education, refinement, 
intellect, in the face, as distinguished 
from the stigmata of ignorance, coarse- 
ness, and brutality. 

Another good exercise for the train- 
ing of the sight is this: Procure a 
number of ordinary marbles, say three 
dozen ; one dozen each of red, of white, 
and of blue. Then mix them together 
in a receptacle. Now grasp a handful 
of the marbles, give one glance at them 
and throw them back again. Then 
note down how many of each color 
there were in the hand. At first you 
will find this difficult. In a short time, 
however, you will be able to distinguish 
at a glance between, say, three red, 
five white, and seven blue — and three 
red, six white, and six blue — with 
corresponding development of the pow- 
ers of perception in all other direc- 
tions. 

A very simple and very good exer- 

32 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

cise for the development of the faculty 
of sight is the following: — 

Procure about a dozen white paste- 
board cards, say three by five inches 
in size. Then with a small brush or 
with a pen draw upon each a number 
of small black circles. The circles 
should be solid black, about one quar- 
ter inch in diameter. On the first card 
draw one, on the second two, and so on, 
until the last, on which you will make 
twelve. Group them so far as possible 
in a circle. 

Now to use them: Hold the cards 
face downward and shuffle them. 
Then take up the top one, give one 
brief glance at it, and try to perceive 
how many black circles there are upon 
it. Don^t try to count during your 
brief glance. Don^t squint, scowl, or 
strain the eyes. Merely glance, and 
then try to remember and count what 
you saw. At first you will probably 
find it difficult to discriminate between 
five circles and six; after a time, how- 

33 



SECRETS OF 

ever, you will be able to decide in- 
stantly upon any number of circles up 
to fifteen, twenty or even more. 

Training the Ear to Hear. 

Few people know how to hear. Of 
most it might well be said ^'ears and 
they hear not/^ I do not mean that 
in most people the organ of hearing is 
in any way defective, but that as a 
result of inattention and lack of prac- 
tice they do not get clear, vivid impres- 
sions from the sounds which impinge 
upon their auditory apparatus. 

One of the best methods of training 
the hearing faculty is to listen atten- 
tively to the varied sounds of the coun- 
try. The humming of insects, the cry 
of the robin, thrush, catbird, blackbird, 
swallow, — all these and the many 
other sounds peculiar to the country 
should be carefully studied. 

The sounds incidental to city life are 
less picturesque and in a sense less 
varied than those of the country; and 

34 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

yet, if we speak only of the musical 
advantages of the city, there alone we 
have material for a splendid auditory 
training. Concerts, the opera, social 
music, the phonograph, even the hand 
organs on the street provide opportu- 
nities for a training of the ear. These 
opportunities may be utilized in vari- 
ous ways. One of the best and most 
practical, perhaps, is to habitually re- 
quire of one^s self a knowledge of the 
melody of popular selections. How 
many people, not distinctly musical, 
know the air of the ^^Soldiers' Chorus'^ 
from "Faust,'' the "Toreador's Song" 
from "Carmen," or the overture to 
"Tannhauser"? And yet these are 
things that we hear every day on the 
street organs. 

A very fine exercise for the develop- 
ment of the hearing faculty is merely 
to listen to the ticking of a watch. A 
method which I have found very prac- 
tical and helpful is the following: — 

Place the watch upon the table at 

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SECRETS OF 

which you are sitting. Now turn 
toward it the left ear. Can you hear 
it? Yes, plainly. Move a foot, two 
feet, three, four, from the table. Can 
you hear the watch? Yes. Now in- 
crease the distance, foot by foot, until 
you can no longer hear the watch. 
Now listen ! listen ! Concentrating the 
attention upon the sound until, out of 
the silence, or of a confusion of sounds, 
there comes to you the clear, rhythm- 
ical ticking of the tiny mechanism. 
All this time you are sitting with your 
left ear turned toward the watch. The 
same practice should, of course, be 
gone through with the right ear. 

This exercise is valuable not only in 
cultivating the power of hearing, but 
also in developing concentration of the 
attention and will. It is merely an- 
other phase of the same method by 
which an orchestra conductor can, at 
will, select one instrument out of a 
band, and hear only that one to the 
exclusion of any other piece. 

3e 



mental supremacy. 

Training the Sense of Smell. 

We hear much to the effect that, as 
an animal, man is inferior to the beasts 
of the field; but, like a great deal else 
that we hear, it is not true — at least 
not to any extent. The truth is that, 
merely as an animal, man is the master- 
piece of creation. In actual strength, 
endurance, grace, and rapidity of mo- 
tion, the best physical types of men 
compare favorably with any other ani- 
mal of the same size and weight. This 
is a biological fact. 

But in one respect, at least, he is 
distinctly inferior, and that is as re- 
gards the sense of smell. There are 
very few animals that are not better 
equipped than man in this respect. 
For this inferiority there are many 
reasons, which we cannot discuss in 
this place. 

I may remark, however, that in some 
people the sense of smell is developed 
to a surprising degree. I once knew 

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SECRETS OF 

a woman, well born and highly edu- 
cated who, while blindfolded, could 
name any one of her friends who 
came within a foot or two of her. The 
same woman was also usually able to 
determine, by their odor, the owner- 
ship of articles belonging to those 
whom she knew well. I know another 
woman who can distinguish copper, 
brass, steel, and iron by their taste and 
odor. I may also add that what we 
call ^'taste^^ is also largely smell. The 
achievements of tea, coffee, tobacco, 
and whisky experts depend very 
largely upon delicacy of the olfactory 
sense. 

A good method of training this sense 
is the following: Procure a number 
of small pasteboard or wooden boxes 
such as are used by druggists in the 
dispensing of pills or tablets. Any 
druggist will provide them for a trifle. 
Then put into each box a small quan- 
tity of one of the following substances : 
cinnamon, cloves, red pepper, mustard, 

38 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

black pepper, ginger. A half dozen 
boxes are enough, selecting for them 
such of the above substances as are 
most readily procurable. To practice 
this method, simply close your eyes, 
open a box at random and try to deter- 
mine what the substance is by the odor. 
This method may be varied by hav- 
ing a number of small vials, each con- 
taining one of the fragrant oils, such 
as oil of cloves, wintergreen, lemon, 
verbena, lavender, peppermint, berga- 
mot, nutmeg, and so on. It is a good 
plan also to take careful note of the 
distinctive odor of the various fragrant 
flowers so that they may afterward be 
recognized by the perfume which is 
peculiar to each. 

Training for the Taste. 

There are, in reality, only four 
savors or tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, 
and salt. As I have just remarked, 
what we call taste is very largely smell, 
or flavor. The best way to develop 

39 



SECRETS OP 

delicacy of the gustatory sense is to 
eat very simple food, and to put there- 
on very little or no seasoning in the 
form of salt, sugar, mustard, pepper, 
vinegar, or other condiment. Then, 
and then only, will one be able to ap- 
preciate the real flavor of the food. No 
one, for instance, who is in the habit 
of using pepper and other condiments, 
can really taste a strawberry. 

In conclusion, I want to emphasize 
two things : first, that a training of the 
perceptive powers is the best possible 
investment one can make — even re- 
garding the matter from its lowest 
view point — the monetary; second, that 
the exercises which I have suggested 
in this chapter, while they may seem 
very simple, almost trivial, will in 
every case where they are seriously 
practiced, add immensely not only to 
the powers of perception but to practical 
efficiency of every faculty of the mind. 



40 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 



IV. 

MEMORY AND HOW TO DE- 
VELOP IT. 

Memory is accumulated genius. — 
James Russell Lowell. 

Memory is the permanence of per- 
ception. — -Latson. 

HE value of any man to 
himself and to the world 
at large depends in great 
degree upon his mem- 
ory — upon his ability to 
recall and to use at any 
desired moment the recollection of 
what he has seen, heard, experienced, 
or thought. 

Memory is really the stock in trade 
of our mental life. Our perceptions 
bring to us a vast mass of experiences — 
things that we have seen, heard, touched, 
tasted, and smelled — our thoughts and 

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SECRETS OF 

experiences. But these things are val- 
uable only when they are held in the 
memory. For, unless they are remem- 
bered they cannot be used. Most of 
us have forgotten much more than we 
remember. We have studied — at 
school, at college, at home. We have 
read many, many books. We have 
had any number of interesting and in- 
structive conversations. We have, 
some of us, traveled and seen many 
rare and curious things. And of it all, 
how much is in our possession at the 
moment — how much is at our ready 
command? Not one tenth — ^probably 
not one hundredth. 

Imagine the enormous loss to us. 
Imagine the waste of time and effort. 
Imagine what it would mean to you or 
to me if, instead of possessing a mem- 
ory which preserved for us only one 
hundredth of our experiences, we could 
remember and apply at will one half, 
three quarters, four fifths of what we 
have been through. 

42 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

''But that is impossible/' you say. 
Allow me to contradict you. There have 
been many cases of recollective power 
which prove otherwise. The most 
striking of these was Antonio Magli- 
abecchi, who lived in Italy in the sev- 
enteenth century. From being a mere 
servant he rose until he became the 
librarian of Cosmo IIL, the Grand 
Duke of Turin. Magliabecchi's mem- 
ory was prodigious; nothing that he 
had ever seen or heard or experienced 
was ever lost to him. It is said that 
after one reading he could repeat ver- 
batim any book in the library of his 
patron, who at this time owned one of 
the largest collections of the day. 

''Impossible/' you say. Not at all. 
I know a man who can neither read 
nor write except to sign his name. He 
is an Irishman who began life in this 
country with a pick and a shovel. To- 
day he is a man of wealth and power, 
financially and politically. He is a 
contractor, real estate operator, stock 

43 



SECRETS OP 

speculator, and is interested in several 
other lines of business. He keeps no 
books and employs no bookkeepers. 
All his values, dates, and figures are 
carried in his head; and at any mo- 
ment he can tell to a cent how he stands 
with any of his business associates. 

Among the ancient Greeks it was 
not at all unusual to find an educated 
patrician who could recite verbatim 
the entire poems of Homer — the Iliad 
and the Odyssey. Cyrus the Great 
could call by name any man of his 
army, numbering one million. Napo- 
leon had power of memory almost as 
remarkable. Gladstone, when present- 
ing to Parliament his yearly budget, 
would speak for several hours, pre- 
senting monetary details running into 
many million pounds without one 
glance at the written report lying on 
the table before him. Robert G. Inger- 
soll, that great jurist and brilliant ora- 
tor, would attend a trial lasting many 
days without taking any notes. Yet 

44 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

in his speeches to the jury, lasting 
sometimes many hours, he never for- 
got or missed a point of the oppo- 
sition. 

And so I might go on. Scott, Milton, 
Shakespeare, Washington, Clay, Web- 
ster — all these were remarkable for 
their power of memory. In fact it is 
safe to say that every man who has ever 
attained a high place among men has 
been possessed of a retentive and exact 
memory. 

So we can see that, as an asset in 
practical life, whether one's ambition 
be literary, artistic, scientific, or 
merely the transferring of dollars from 
some one's pocket into his own — as a 
practical asset, power of memory is of 
the highest conceivable value. A good 
memory will give you an incalculable 
advantage over others — an advantage 
which no other mental qualification 
will balance. 



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SECRETS OF 

Memory Training Not Difficult. 

The mind is like potter's clay — it is 
easily molded. And there is no direc- 
tion in which development is so easy 
as in the department of memory. Even 
a few days of practice along the lines 
which I shall suggest will generally 
make a noticeable difference, and two or 
three months of conscientious training 
will often be sufficient to metamorphose 
a poor, weak, and inexact memory into 
one that is tenacious and reliable. 

The Nature of Memory. 

In the introductory article of this 
series I promised you that I would not 
be theoretical or descriptive, but that 
I would make these chapters purely 
practical. Now, I intend to keep my 
word; but, in order to make what fol- 
lows more intelligible and helpful, it 
will be well just here to stop for a 
moment and make a few brief state- 
ments as to the nature of memory. 

In the first place, I may say at once 

46 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

that, in reality, there is no such thing 
as ''the memory.'' This sounds very 
much like an old-fashioned Irish 
''buir' ; but it is merely a statement of 
sober fact. There is no memory : there 
are only memories. When I say that 
I am not merely juggling with terms; 
the difference is important and funda- 
mental. 

I mean just this: Memory is not, 
as we used to be taught many years 
ago, a ''faculty of the soul'' — a little 
section of the brain to be developed all 
by itself. Not at all. Memory is 
merely a term used to describe the way 
that certain acts or thoughts tend to 
remain in the mind. And every act 
or thought has its own separate little 
memory. 

Some acts or thoughts we remember 
easily; other acts or thoughts we re- 
member with difficulty, if at all. If 
some one were to describe to me the 
details of a case of insanity, symptoms, 
history, treatment, I should remember 

47 



SECRETS OF 

L I ■ iMiiiyii II— ■■III iiiiiiinrrnmii " ' 

it a long time ; because, as a physician, 
I am interested in psychiatry. But, 
although I listened patiently a day or 
two ago to a long account of the Wall 
Street adventures of an acquaintance 
of mine, I am quite sure that I could 
give no intelligent account thereof, be- 
cause I know little and care less about 
such matters. In the same way some 
people have good memory for names, 
but cannot recall faces, others can re- 
member dates, but have no power to 
recollect names. And so on. 

The point is just this: We remem- 
ber best the things in which we have 
most interest, the things with which 
we are most familiar. The little mem- 
ory of any act or thought may stick in 
the mind or it may not — whether it is 
or is not remembered depends mainly 
upon the amount of attention we have 
given to that act or that thought at 
the time it was occurring. 

If, therefore, we would have fine 
powers of memory — if we desire a 

48 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

large supply of clear, vivid memories 
all under instant command, it is essen- 
tial that we should pay to the thing 
we wish to remember strict attention 
and careful study. And this is really 
the great secret of what is called ^^good 
memory/' 

In other words, a memory is simply 
a permanency, a recurrence, of a per- 
ception; and that memory is clear and 
complete just in proportion as the per- 
ception was clear and complete. If, 
on an introduction to a stranger, I 
scarcely glance at his face and pay 
little or no attention to the name, I am 
not likely to remember either the man 
or the name. If, on the other hand, 
I look closely at him and attend care- 
fully to the name, I shall be likely to 
remember it, perhaps for years. 

I, myself, frequently have presented 
to me twenty-five or thirty strangers 
in the course of an evening; and I am 
usually able afterward to recall all or 
nearly all of their names and faces. 

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SECRETS OF 

This is merely the result of a habit of 
attention to the matter. 

The Basic Law of Memory. 

Now, then, based upon the principle 
just discussed, we may formulate our 
first rule for the development of mem- 
ory: Study the object you wish to 
remember in all its phases, in all its 
peculiarities, in all its relations. For 
the time being keep every other thought 
out of the mind. Make the object part 
of yourself; and you will never forget 
it. I say object, but I mean, of course, 
anything, fact, figure, idea, principle, 
or plan, to all of which the same rule 
applies. 

So much for the rule ; but you would 
like to know exactly how to apply this 
rule to practical development. Well, 
one of the best ways I know is the 
following : — 

You are walking down the street. 
A carriage passes at which you have 
glanced casually. After it has passed, 

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MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

question yourself about it. What kind 
of a carriage was it — landeau, ba- 
rouche, brougham, or what? What was 
the color of the wheels? Had they 
rubber tires? How many horses were 
there? Their color? The coachman — 
black or white? The livery, if any? 
How many occupants — men or women? 
How dressed? Do you remember all 
their faces, so that if you saw them 
again you would know them? And 
so on. 

By the time you have done this con- 
scientiously on a dozen occasions you 
will be surprised and delighted at the 
improvement in your ability both to 
perceive and to remember; for, as I 
cannot reiterate too often, the two, 
perception and memory, are practically 
one. 

Well, after passing the carriage and 
getting all the good you can out of the 
experience in an educational way, you 
will come to a shop window — the win- 
dow of a toy shop, let us say. Don't 

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SECRETS OF 

stop to look at the window; that will 
merely confuse you. Take one glance 
at it, and pass on. 

Then ask yourself what you saw in 
the window. If practicable have a 
pad and pencil, and write down each 
article as you remember it. This is 
the method employed by the famous 
conjurer, Robert Houdin — a method 
by which he so trained the memory both 
of himself and of his young son that 
they were able to remember over thirty 
thousand questions and answers, which 
formed the code of their famous "sec- 
ond sight^' act. 

Another valuable method of mem- 
ory training is to make it a rule every 
night, either before or after retiring, 
to review in detail the events of the 
day. This was the method employed 
by the great Edward Thurlow, lord 
high chancellor of Great Britain. At 
first his memory was so poor that he 
was unable to recall what he had eaten 
for breakfast. Eventually, however, 

52 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

he developed one of the most remark- 
able memories on record. I know of 
a number of cases in which this method 
has proven of the utmost value. 

Another very simple and convenient, 
but at the same time very useful, 
method of culturing the power of recol- 
lection is the following: Take some 
interesting book, such as a historical 
work, or some attractive novel. Read 
a paragraph to yourself slowly and 
carefully. Then close the book and 
repeat aloud the substance of the sec- 
tion which you have just read. Make 
no attempt to repeat the passage word 
for word. Simply give the sense of it 
as you remember. It matters little 
whether you repeat the author's words 
or use your own. After your first 
attempt (which is not likely to be a 
striking success) read the paragraph 
again and make a second effort to re- 
call and express its general meaning. 

When you have learned this para- 
graph fairly well, pass on to the next, 

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SECRETS OF 

and so on, until you come to the last 
paragraph on the page. Then take 
that page as your task, and give an 
account of the entire page. After 
practicing this way on every para- 
graph and every page until the end of 
the chapter, take the chapter as a whole 
and repeat it as fully and exactly as 
you can. 

This seems like hard work. And it 
is, at first. But it soon becomes inter- 
esting, especially as you begin to find 
that, although at first you were unable 
to give any clear idea of a paragraph 
you had just read, you are soon able to 
recall, and to clearly express, the sense 
of an entire chapter without any great 
effort or difficulty. 

This exercise trains not only the 
memory, but the perceptions, the will, 
and the powers of expression. So far 
as I know, it was invented by Henry 
Clay, in his early farm boy days, and 
was often quoted by him as being the 
method which had done most toward 

54 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

developing his prodigious memory and 
splendid oratorical ability. 

A valuable variation of the above 
exercise is to write out at length, 
instead of attempting to express in 
spoken words, your recollection of the 
paragraph, the page, the chapter. For 
those who desire the widest develop- 
ment — a development of the power of 
expression in writing as well as in 
speech — I should suggest that they 
practice this exercise by both talking 
and writing their memories of the pas- 
sage. 

By the time you have gone over one 
book in this way, talking out certain 
passages and writing others, you will 
not only know that book in a way that 
few people ever know any book; but 
you will have developed added powers 
of attention, will power, memory, and 
expression, which will prove a surprise 
and a delight to you. 



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SECRETS OF 

The Pictorial Faculty. 

One of the prime secrets of memory 
is to develop the ability to recall before 
the mind a picture of the object desired 
— a vivid recollection of its appear- 
ance. When a schoolboy I discovered 
that there was no use whatever in my 
studying either my spelling or my 
geography lesson. All that was neces- 
sary was for me to pass my eye slowly 
down the list of words for spelling and 
to look at the map of the particular 
section we were studying. After that 
I could bring up before me a clear pic- 
ture of any word called for or of any 
section of the map covering our lesson. 
In questioning musicians who are able 
to play from memory long passages on 
the piano or violin, I find that in the 
majority of cases they remember the 
appearance of the page of music, and 
follow the notes just as if the real page 
were before them. This power of vis- 
ualizing memories has been in some 

56 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

people developed to a surprising 
extent. The mnemosynic achieve- 
ments of the Houdins and of Magli- 
abeechi referred to above, as well as 
of other prodigies like the mathemat- 
ical wonder, Zerah Colburn, and his 
prototype, Jacques Inaudie — the mem- 
ory feats of these depend largely, in 
some cases entirely, upon the visual- 
izing faculty. 

And what is the best method of 
developing this power of sight mem- 
ory? There are several very simple 
and valuable. First try this: Write 
out in a clear hand a list of words in 
column form. The list should contain 
at first not more than five or six words ; 
later it may be extended to twenty or 
even thirty. 

Now place your list of six words 
before you and look at it for a moment. 
Don^t stare or strain the eyes. Don^t 
try to remember the words — yet. This 
is the moment for observation — for 
getting upon the photographic plate of 

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SECRETS OF 

the mind a clear memory-picture of 
the list of words. After a moment of 
steady gazing, cover the paper and try 
to remember exactly what the words 
were and how they looked. At first 
you are likely to find this difficult. 
Soon it will be easy to remember six — 
to recall the words, passing up as well 
as down the column. Then gradually 
increase the number until you can 
handle at least twenty-five. 

A useful variation of this exercise is 
to use figures instead of words, arrang- 
ing them at first as a square of four 
figures, and calling each one off while 
you remember its position. Here 
again, as soon as four is easy for 
you, increase the number of fig- 
ures by two, until you can retain, 
after a single look, a clear picture of 
thirty-six or more figures. I have 
known a boy of twelve who was able to 
remember sixty-four figures — a square 
of eight figures up and eight across. 
He would, on request, call off first line 

58 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

of figures forward, third line of figures 
backward, line of units down, and so 
on — in other words, this boy could see 
in his mind^s eye a mental picture of 
those sixty-four figures that was abso- 
lutely as clear as the original had been 
to the physical eye. 

I may add that the boy I refer to 
was not in any sense exceptional, save 
that he had become interested in the 
^'tricks'' which I taught him and his 
fellows. All of them are now men of 
notably fine memory. 

The same method may be varied in 
other ways. For instance, letters may 
be substituted for the figures or words 
may be arranged in groups, say twelve 
in groups of three each, the exercise 
being to remember not only the word 
but its position in relation to the other 
words. So exercises for developing the 
power of memory can be multiplied 
indefinitely. Those given above, how- 
ever, are more than sufficient, if prop- 
erly practiced. 

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SECRETS OF 



Union accomplishes all things. — 
Sophocles. 

/ have only to take up this or that to 
flood my soul with memories. — Mme. 
Deluzy. 

The whole art of mental training is 
based upon the fact that any action at 
first executed with conscious effort be- 
comes, in time, sub-conscious and ha- 
bitual. — Thompson Jay Hudson. 

Within the secret chambers of the 

brain, 
The thoughts lie linked by many a 

mystic chain. 
Awake but one, and lo, what legions 

rise! 
Each stamps its image as the other 

dies. 

— COWPER. 



GO 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 



V. 




ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 

F all the operations of 
the mind the one most 
directly conducive to 
mental readiness is the 
power of associating or 
grouping ideas. The man 
or woman in whom the power of asso- 
ciation is well developed has a mind 
which may be likened to a vast skein 
of threads. Each thread represents an 
idea. And of these thread-ideas all 
those which are at all related are 
grouped together like so many threads 
tied in a knot ; so that if you touch one 
of the thread-ideas you are instantly 
in communication with all of that 
group. 

When ideas are grouped or associ- 
ated in this orderly manner any 
thought coming into the mind will in- 

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SECRETS OF 

stantly suggest a large number of 
related thoughts. This means an ac- 
tive, an efficient, frequently a brilliant 
mind. 

Now let us understand at once that 
what is commonly called ^^education'^ 
— that is, a mere knowledge of facts- 
no matter how extensive it may be, 
does not necessarily confer the power 
of associating or grouping ideas in such 
a manner that they are readily avail- 
able for purposes of speaking, writing, 
or thinking. Indeed I have known 
men of vast learning who could not 
talk well, who could not write well, 
who could not even think well. A well 
stored mind — that is, mere erudition, 
while it can be acquired only by a per- 
son with a good memory, does not by 
any means necessarily imply the power 
of association. 

One who possesses unusual power of 
associating ideas is always interesting; 
often brilliant. His ideas are, as I 
have said, like threads knotted to- 

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MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

gether. Each idea suggested to him 
calls up in his mind many related ideas. 
In the mind of the merely erudite 
man, for instance, the mention of the 
word ^'horse'^ will arouse few, if any, 
other mental pictures. In the mind, 
however, of the person who has the 
power of association the idea ^^horse^' 
awakens a large number of interest- 
ing thoughts. There is the horse so 
superbly described in the biblical poem. 
Job. There is the famous horse Bu- 
cephalus, the war charger of Alexan- 
der the Great, whom only he could ride. 
The person with strong power of asso- 
ciation remembers, too, the wonderful 
horse, Kantara, ridden by Gautama, 
the Buddha. Then he thinks of the 
horse of Darius which, by neighing at 
the critical moment, caused his master 
to be elected king of Persia — Darius 
the Great. He recalls to mind the 
story of the great wooden horse, inside 
of which the Greek soldiers were smug- 
gled into Troy, to the downfall of that 

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SECRETS OF 

city. And lastly, the man with trained 
powers of association will be able to 
tell you something about the interest- 
ing history of the horse, both before 
and since it was first tamed and ridden 
many thousands of years ago by Meli- 
zeus. King of Thessaly. 

And so with any other subject you 
might suggest to him. In the mind of 
such a person every idea is intimately 
associated with many other more or 
less related ideas; and, even though 
his actual stock of information may be 
small, his mental images are so closely 
connected and so quickly recalled that 
the practical power and usefulness of 
his mind is greater than in the case 
of another person with a larger stock of 
knowledge and inferior power of asso- 
ciation. 

Another great advantage of well-de- 
veloped powers of association is that it 
is almost a preventive of forgetful- 
ness. As I have explained in the chap- 
ter on the training of the memory, that 

64 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

which we fully understand, we do not, 
cannot, forget. Now a complete un- 
derstanding of any idea is simply 
the result of a process of making that 
idea the center of a mass of associa- 
tions. 

If you had to leave your boat in a 
stream with a very rapid current you 
would tie the boat to the shores, not 
only with one rope but with several 
ropes running to different points on 
each side of the stream. And the more 
lines you tie the boat with and the 
more directions they extend in, the less 
likely will your boat be to escape, and 
the more readily can you recover it at 
will. The same principle applies to 
ideas. Each associational relation is 
like a tiny thread binding one particu- 
lar idea to another idea ; and, when we 
bind that one particular idea to a great 
many other ideas, we make sure, first, 
that we will not forget it, and second, 
that when there comes into the mind 
any one of the ideas with which we 

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SECRETS OF 

have associated the new idea, the new 
idea will immediately be drawn into 
the mind. 

All this being true, we will be ready 
to appreciate the following important 
statement: It is necessary to get into 
the mind a large stock of ideas; this 
can be done only by perception and 
memory; but it is equally necessary 
that the ideas and memories in the 
mind shall be so associated or grouped 
that one idea instantly calls up many 
other related ideas. And this can be 
done only by developing the power of 
association. 

How Associations Are Made. 

And here arises the practical ques- 
tion: How shall I so train my mind 
that the ideas it contains shall be 
closely associated, each one with many 
others? 

In trying to give you an intelligible 
answer to this question it will first be 
necessary to discuss briefly something 

66 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

of the process by which' associations 
are formed in the mind. 

Some one has said: ^^Thoughts are 
things/' Now this statement is quite 
meaningless unless we have a clear 
idea as to what is meant by the term 
^^thing/' But let us imagine for a 
moment that the ^^thing'^ is something 
concrete, commonplace, and physical, 
like a brick — ^an ordinary building 
brick. For a thought may be regarded 
as an object, a thing, just as a brick 
can be studied as an object, a thing. 

Now in order to make associations 
around anything we must first of all 
get a clear idea of that thing. And so 
we must begin by studying our brick — 
analyzing it. We will find that the 
brick has form, color, dimensions 
(length, breadth, thickness), weight, 
hardness, roughness, certain utilities 
and possibilities, history, money value, 
and so on. This process of determin- 
ing the qualities peculiar to the object 
or idea is called analysis; and analysis 

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SECRETS OF 

—i^E^a— ■! II llllllli»BBB— 

is the first step essential to the forma- 
tion of associations. For it should be 
understood that most of the ideas asso- 
ciated with any particular object are 
based, not upon that object as a whole, 
but upon some quality or qualities of 
the object. 

Now having analyzed our brick we 
may take certain of its qualities and 
on that basis make associations be- 
tween the brick and other objects or 
ideas. If we take its form we shall find 
that it is something like a wooden pav- 
ing block, something like a book, some- 
thing like a cigar box. If we take the 
usual color of the brick-red, we note 
that it resembles terra cotta, the build- 
ing material, that it is a shade fre- 
quently seen in wall covering and rugs 
and also found in the shingle stains 
often used on the roofs of country 
houses. As to the uses of the brick, 
we find the brick can be associated with 
granite, marble, and other building 
materials, cobble stones, wooden pav- 
es 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

ing blocks, concrete, and various other 
substances used for pavement, and 
so on. 

Now, in all this we have gone 
through four distinct processes of rea- 
soning; and, without these four proc- 
esses, no association betv/een ideas 
could exist. First of all we analyzed 
our brick; next we extended our ideas 
of it, trying here and there until we 
found certain objects which could be 
associated with the brick. Lastly we 
noted that every other object we 
thought of was either like the brick in 
some certain particular or was entirely 
unlike it in every particular. These 
processes we may call extension, like- 
ness, and unlikeness. 

So these four processes of reasoning 
— analysis, extension, likeness, and un- 
likeness — must be gone through in 
order to make complete and valuable 
associations. 

In the example just given I chose for 
my object a brick because the mere fact 

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SECRETS OF 

of its being a simple, prosaic, and com- 
monplace object rendered my explana- 
tion more clear. The same process, 
the same treatment, however, may and, 
in fact, must be applied to other and 
more complicated ideas. 

First of all we analyze the object 
from every standpoint and in every 
particular and detail. If a concrete 
object we study all its qualities as we 
did in the case of the brick. If an 
idea, we consider carefully all its 
phases. Then trace all its relations to 
other ideas, noting in what respect it 
resembles or differs from such other 
ideas. Then we shall have gone 
through the four processes — analysis, 
extension, likeness, and unlikeness. 

To give you an instance illustrat- 
ing this interesting and important 
method: Not long ago I was one of a 
number of guests at a country house. 
One evening when a number of us were 
sitting on the porch, the little daughter 
of our hostess approached with a dish 

70 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

containing some fine apples, and said 
to me: ^^Will you have an apple, Doc- 
tor?'^ ^^My dear, that is a dangerous 
question to ask a man,'' said I. ^'Do 
you not know that all the sin and mis- 
ery in the world came because a woman 
once asked a man to have an apple — 
and because he took it?'' 

And the child laughed and said: 
'^Oh, I know. You mean the apple that 
Adam took from Eve." Clever child! 

Now my remark was made without 
any conscious effort of mind whatever 
— without any striving or deliberate 
action of the will. It was entirely sub- 
conscious and effortless. Afterward I 
amused myself by tracing out exactly 
what my mind had done when the child 
asked that question. And this is what 
happened: Analysis ^^girl — offers ap- 
ple." Out of this analysis I selected the 
idea ^^apple" and upon this based my ex- 
tension. First of all I thought of the old 
adage "tender as the apple of the eye." 
Then in rapid succession there came 

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SECRETS OF 

into my mind memories of: the apple 
that William Tell is said to have shot 
off the head of his son ; '^apples of gold 
in pitchers of silver^' mentioned in the 
Bible; the ''apple of Sodom/^ the fruit 
of the osher tree, which is beautiful 
externally but filled with a kind of 
ashes — therefore often used as a sym- 
bol for disappointment; the apples of 
the Hesperian field, said to be guarded 
by the four mystic sisters — ^the Hespe- 
rides; the apple for which Paris ran 
his race. 

Now all of these ideas, found by ex- 
tension of the original idea ''apple,^^ 
were appropriate; but none seemed 
quite to fit. Then came the thought 
of the story of Eve and her proffer of 
the ''apple'^ to Adam. This exactly 
fitted the occasion. And hence the 
reply. 

In this instance also you can easily 
trace the processes — analysis, exten- 
sion, seeking resemblances or likenesses, 
and discarding ideas less appropriate 

72 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

m MlilMMIMIIMMMiiWiglM—a— —— ilB— ■— B— ^M^ 

or unlike. And do not forget that, in 
the mind that is even fairly well 
trained, these pictures flash up with 
incredible rapidity. I know that in my 
own mind, as in the instance just cited, 
six or seven pictures will often occur, 
and I will select the one which it seems 
appropriate to mention, within the few 
seconds that ordinarily intervene be- 
tween a remark and the reply to it. 

Association and Memory. 

In an earlier paragraph I told you 
that proper association of ideas prac- 
tically insured power of memory. Let 
me now try to give you some notion 
of how this principle of mental activ- 
ity can be utilized. 

Let us take a simple instance. Epic- 
tetus says: "My mind to me a king- 
dom is.'^ Now, first of all, we con- 
sider this splendid utterance until we 
thoroughly understand and appreciate 
it. That is good, but it is not enough. 
We desire to possess this sentence — to 

73 



SECRETS OF 

make it a part of our mental stock in 
trade, so that we can use it at appro- 
priate times in public speaking, in 
writing or in conversation. How shall 
we do this? Well, we have really four 
ideas in the quotation: the mind, a 
kingdom, contentment (implied), and 
the personality of the man, Epictetus, 
who wrote the sentence. 

Let us first learn something of Epic- 
tetus. Let us analyze his character 
and place a mental picture of him in 
the midst of a network of associations 
which will make that picture of Epic- 
tetus our own forever. We find the 
following points for association: A 
slave — became free — great philosopher 
— blameless life — banished — friend of 
Adrian and Marcus Aurelius. 

So we may associate the picture of 
Epictetus with the following ideas: 
slaves who were great men ; great phi- 
losophers who were banished; men of 
humble origin who became friends of 
kings; Adrian and Marcus Aurelius — 

74 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

any one of these will almost certainly 
suggest to us the idea, the mental pic- 
ture, of Epictetus. 

Now to return to Epictetus' sen- 
tence: The three ideas, kingdom, 
mind, contentment, should each be 
dwelt on for a moment in this wise: 
Kingdom, a place of vast extent, un- 
limited resources, boundless possibili- 
ties, infinite powers, much to explore, 
much to conquer. And to Epictetus, 
his mind was like a kingdom; and he 
was content. After the idea of a king- 
dom of great extent, take up the 
thought of the mind and its possibili- 
ties. Dwell on this until you see how, 
to a man of intellect, the mind is really 
a kingdom — a kingdom more interest- 
ing and wonderful than any mere phys- 
ical country could possibly be. Then 
ponder on the notion of contentment 
in spite of humble circumstances. 
Associate this with the idea of Tho- 
reau, of Purun Dass, of Diogenes, of 
Gautama, and of Jesus of Nazareth — 

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SECRETS OF 

all of whom were content to live simply, 
finding their kingdom in the mind and 
soul. ^^My kingdom is not of this 
world/^ said Jesus. 

Thereafter any of these ideas will be 
likely to suggest the epigram we are 
studying ; for all of these ideas are now 
united together by the network of asso- 
ciations we have constructed. 

Now to work out in this way all the 
many things which you want to re- 
member and to have at instant com- 
mand, seems, of course, like very 
hard work. Happily, however, such a 
method of forming associations, of 
binding ideas into bundles or clusters, 
as it were, is necessary only until the 
habit is once formed. Then the mat- 
ter goes on automatically, of itself. 

Conscious Action Becomes 
Unconscious. 

It is a beneficent law of the mind 
(and of the body, too, for that matter) 
that any act, after it has been repeated 

76 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

a certain number of times, tends to 
become automatic — to do itself without 
any sensation of effort, sometimes even 
without our knowledge. A few months 
of careful effort will in practically 
every case develop such a habit of asso- 
ciating apposite ideas, that the student 
will possess, without further care or 
drill, this most superb accomplishment 
of the mind — ^^the power of association. 

It requires both care and attention 
to form any desirable habit, either of 
mind or body; but, the habit once 
formed, no further care or attention is 
necessary. To learn to write, for in- 
stance, to form the letters, to combine 
them into words, to elaborate the words 
into sentences and paragraphs, the 
paragraphs into pages — all this takes 
time, a number of years. Once thor- 
oughly learned, however, as by a 
trained writer, the practice of writing 
requires no special care or effort. 

And so with this important matter 
of association. Few people have it to 

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SECRETS OF 

any great degree. In most people the 
ideas are separate, isolated. Cardinal 
Newman says of some seafaring men 
that they ^^find themselves now in Eu- 
rope, now in Asia; they see visions of 
great cities and wild regions; they are 
in the marts of commerce or in the 
islands of the south; they gaze on 
Pompey's Pillar or on the Andes; and 
nothing which meets them carries them 
forward or backward to any idea be- 
yond itself. Nothing has . . . any 
relations; nothing has a history or a 
promise.^^ All this means, in a word, 
that these men have not the power of 
association. 

In order to arrange our ideas into 
clusters or groups, we must for a time 
give special attention to the matter. 
As a help to study along these lines, 
I can recommend the following exer- 
cises which have proven in my own 
personal experience and in that of 
others advised by me, of the greatest 
possible value. 

78 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

Take any object you like — a rose, a 
pencil, a chair, a wheel, a knife. Hav- 
ing selected your object write out a list 
of its peculiarities. Say you have taken 
a knife — an ordinary table knife. 
Now, describe its form, color, size, 
shape, weight, material, and state its 
peculiarities — hard, cool, sharp, heavy, 
opaque, elastic. 

Having written out this list of de- 
scriptive points, take them up one by 
one and think of what other objects 
have the same quality. For instance, 
in material the knife, being of steel 
with an ivory handle, resembles all cut- 
lery and steel machinery, differing 
from them not in material but per- 
haps in the manner and degree of the 
tempering. The ivory handle will 
suggest a large number of articles 
made of that material. The sharpness 
of the knife suggests lancets, swords, 
scissors, and so on, and may also be 
applied in a figurative way, as to the 
nature of a remark (^^Her words were 

79 



SECRETS OF 

like a dagger thrust into his souFO 5 
or the effect of a glance {'^An eye like 
a bayonet thrust met mine'O ^^d so on. 
This treatment of the object ^^nife'' 
if done exhaustively will prove a most 
valuable exercise. Three or four hours 
over it will be time well spent. Not 
that you are specially interested in the 
subject ^^knife/^ its analysis or its rela- 
tions, but that in going through the 
exercises with any object whatever, 
you are getting your mind into the 
habit of treating all subjects in the 
same analytical manner. By the time 
you have treated twenty different ob- 
jects in accordance with this method, 
you will have gone far toward gaining 
the invaluable accomplishment of asso- 
ciating ideas. 



80 



MENTAL SUPREMACY, 



VI. 

IMAGINATION AND HOW TO 
CULTIVATE IT. 

The mind can make substance and 
people planets of its own. — Byron. 

The universe to man is but a projec- 
tion of his own inner consciousness. — 
Kant. 

F all the powers of the 
mind, imagination is the 
most picturesque, and, in 
many respects, the most 
interesting. Without it 
the world would be bar- 
ren. Not merely would there be no 
pictures, no music, no books, but there 
would be no houses, no bridges, no 
ocean greyhounds, no great business 
enterprises — nothing, in fact; for 
everything that man has made has 
been first conceived in the imagina- 

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SECRETS OF 

tion before it was born into actual 
being. 

We cannot think of a person being 
without any power of imagination ; for 
that is an impossibility. But many, 
many people, I am sorry to say, are 
greatly deficient in imagination; and 
this lack of imagination alone is enough 
to render them commonplace, uninter- 
esting, and of little use or significance 
in the world. 

A man or woman may be deficient 
in imagination and yet be honest, 
straightforward, hard working, consci- 
entious. But for such a man or such 
a woman the higher rewards of life 
are hopelessly unattainable. He or she 
may make an excellent bookkeeper, but 
never an accountant; a skillful typist, 
but never a secretary ; a faithful stock- 
boy, but never a salesman. The ac- 
countant, the secretary, the salesman, 
must have imagination. 

Of course when it comes to any ac- 
tual creative work — painting, sculp- 

82 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

ture, musical composition, literature — 
the power of imagination, highly 
trained, refined, daring, and vivid, is 
the great essential. The creators of 
famous masterpieces have, in instances, 
lacked everything else but this one 
thing — imagination. Some of the great 
artists have lived all their lives in mis- 
ery and want. Some have been igno- 
rant, some have been coarse, some have 
been immoral, some have been eccen- 
tric, some have been almost or quite 
insane. But one thing all have pos- 
sessed in common, and that is — a 
superb imagination. 

In no respect, I believe, do men dif- 
fer so widely as in the power and activ- 
ity of their faculty of imagination. 
Hundreds of men and women have 
walked and sat in the old country 
churchyard, and no one had observed 
there anything that was especially in- 
teresting or picturesque. But one day 
there came to the churchyard a man 
with a fine imagination, a poet. He 

83 



SECRETS OF 

saw more than mere grass and trees 
and headstones; and he gave to the 
world the most perfect poem in the 
English language. His name was 
Thomas Gray, and the poem was the 
famous ^^Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard/^ 

Thousands of people had seen an 
apple fall from a tree to the ground. 
But one day a man with a great imagi- 
nation saw that commonplace thing. 
His imagination seized upon it, and he 
propounded Newton^s theory of the law 
of gravitation, one of the most impor- 
tant achievements in the whole history 
of human thought. Another man sees 
his mother's teakettle boiling. He 
observes that the lid is raised by the 
expanding steam. His great imagina- 
tion starts from this homely detail; 
and he gives to the world — the steam 
engine. Napoleon, poor, obscure, hun- 
gry, trudging up and down the streets 
of Paris in search of employment, 
dreams of making all Europe one vast 

84 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

empire — his empire. And he all but 
succeeds. 

And so we might go on indefinitely. 
Enough, perhaps, to repeat that the 
world's masters have always been pos- 
sessed of fine and daring imagination, 
and that, without great powers of im- 
agination, there can be accomplished 
no great or important work of any 
nature whatever. 

Imagination Easily Cultivated. 

Perhaps you feel that your own imag- 
ination does not always serve you as well 
as it should; perhaps you are wishing 
that it was better — that you could pro- 
duce in it such improvement as to en- 
able you to create some good and 
worthy thing in the world. In that 
case I am glad to be able to tell you 
that, of all the powers of the mind, 
none is capable of being so easily, con- 
veniently, and rapidly cultivated as the 
imagination. And I may remark that, 
as in the case of other faculties, the 

85 



SECRETS OF 

means taken to cultivate the imagina- 
tion will at the same time necessarily 
train and strengthen the mentality in 
every other direction. 

First of all, it must be understood 
that the act of imagining, of bringing 
images before the mind, is not a sepa- 
rate function of the mentality, but that 
it is closely interwoven with, partly 
consists of, in fact, several other of the 
mental faculties. So in developing the 
power of imagination we must first 
speak of these other faculties which are 
really a part of it. If we study an act 
of imagination, we shall find that first 
of all we must have some material for 
our image. 

To most people the act of imagina- 
tion means the creation of something 
entirely new. They think that the pic- 
ture created by the painter, the poet, 
the novelist, is new in every detail. 
Now, this is a radical error. The artist 
does not create anything that is en- 
tirely new. And this for a very good 

86 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

reason — there is not and never will be 
anything entirely new. Now, as in the 
days of Solomon: ^There is nothing 
new under the sun/^ 

You may imagine, for instance, a 
green horse with purple wings. You 
say: Surely, that is an entirely 
new idea. I say: No, it is merely 
a new combination of four very old 
and commonplace ideas — a horse, a 
pair of wings, and the two colors, 
green and purple. And so in all cre- 
ations, no matter what they may be 
— however new they may seem — it is 
only the combination that is new. The 
materials combined are old, as old, very 
often, as human thought itself. 

We see, then, that the first raw ma- 
terial for imagination is our per- 
cepts — the things we have seen and 
heard and felt and smelled and tasted. 
And it seems hardly necessary to state 
that the better service we have gotten 
from our senses and perceptions, the 
more clear and vivid will be our power 

87 



SECRETS OF 

to bring before the mind images made 
up of those things. The first task, 
then, of him who would develop his 
power of imagination is to educate the 
senses. 

Imagination and Memory. 

But the imagination requires more 
than mere perception. The things per- 
ceived must be remembered. A thing 
that we have forgotten — lost out of the 
conscious mind — cannot be used as 
material for an act of imagination. 
And then the things perceived and re- 
membered should have been grouped 
and associated into clusters; so that 
when one wishes to imagine a certain 
picture he will have a vast amount of 
material in his mind from which to 
select materials for that picture. 

In cultivating the power of imagina- 
tion, then, we must begin by educating 
perception, memory, and association; 
for (and here is my definition of imag- 
ination) imagination is merely a com- 

88 



M ENTAL SUPREMACY. 

bination of perception, memory, and 
association with initiative, will. This 
is not at all text-bookish; but it will 
give you — as the text-books probably 
would not on such short acquaintance 
— a clear idea of the process. 

Some Practical Exercises. 

Let me state right here that you are 
exercising your imagination all the 
time during all your waking hours. 
You imagine thousands of things every 
day. Everything you do, every person 
you go to meet, everything you say — 
these are all in the imagination before 
they become realities'. Your imagina- 
tion has much exercise, but— it is not 
the right kind of exercise. The men- 
tal pictures are not clear and vivid. 
How shall you make them so? De- 
mand it of yourself. And this brings 
me to your first practical exercise. 

Get a good, lively novel, something 
full of action, and as near as possible 
to the here and the now. Make your- 

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SECRETS OF 

self comfortable and begin to read. 
When you come to the end of the first 
paragraph, stop and image before your 
mind a clear picture of what was ex- 
pressed or described. Was it a scene? 
See it, mountains, sea, farmhouse, city 
residence, cold, warm, rainy, bright. 
Try to make it as vivid as it would be 
were you actually gazing on the scene. 
That is what the writer of the story 
did, or you would not be reading it. 
During the next paragraph the scene 
is changed; something is added to the 
picture. See this. Take much time; 
it is an exercise. Then comes a per- 
son, say a man. See him. Is he tall, 
short, dark, light, prepossessing, repel- 
lent? How is he dressed? Force 
yourself to imagine every detail. And 
so on, for a chapter. 

By this time you will have had 
enough for once ; but if you have acted 
conscientiously in accordance with my 
hints, you will feel an understanding, 
an interest, and a sympathy with that 

90 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

book and its characters that will sur- 
prise you. By the time you have read 
a dozen chapters in this manner you 
will have proven to yourself in many 
ways that your imagination — and, in 
fact, all your mental powers — ^have 
markedly improved. Besides, you will 
know for the first time the real joy of 
reading. This is the kind of reading 
Emerson had in mind when he said: 
^There is the creative reading as well 
as creative writing.'^ 

Another method by which the imag- 
ing faculty can be cultivated is the fol- 
lowing: Take fifteen or twenty min- 
utes at the end of the day and make a 
detailed review of its more important 
occurrences. Take much time; supply 
every detail ; see and hear again every- 
thing that was said and done. Exam- 
ine each episode critically. What mis- 
takes did you make? In what way 
could you have handled the situation 
more easily, advantageously, diplo- 
matically? How would you proceed 

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SECRETS OF 

again under similar circumstances? In 
this exercise be careful, first, to see — 
actually see, clearly and vividly — every 
event, person, action, detail, of each 
episode ; second, in imagining how you, 
yourself, and others might have acted, 
beware of criticising the actions of 
other people. Try to feel that what- 
ever went wrong, you, yourself, had 
you possessed sufficient will, sympathy, 
delicacy, intelligence, and control might 
have made it right. Don't try to finish 
all the events of the day; that would 
be impossible. When the fifteen or 
twenty minutes is up, stop. This is 
the method of Pythagoras, who devoted 
his entire evening to meditating on the 
occurrences of the day. 

For developing the power of audi- 
tory imagination the following meth- 
ods are useful. Recall to mind the 
words and melody of some familiar 
song as rendered by a good singer, and 
imagine how it sounds. Hear the 
words, note the quality of the voice 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

and accompaniment. Three or four 
songs or three or four repetitions of 
the same song are enough for once. 

Call up in your memory one at a 
time the various sounds of the coun- 
try and hear them in imagination — 
the hum of bees, the sound of the wind, 
the rustling leaves, the cries of the va- 
rious birds, the lowing of cattle, and 
other noises peculiar to the life of the 
country. 

Another exercise of value is the fol- 
lowing: Recall some experience of 
your past which, at the time, made a 
strong impression upon you. Review 
it in all its details, slowly and care- 
fully. Consider its causes, the means 
whereby it would have been prevented, 
outside influences which affected it, the 
consequences of the occurrence upon 
yourself and others. What influence 
has it had upon your life since that 
time? Good? Bad? Why? If good, 
may the same experience not be 
realized again? If bad, by what means 

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SECRETS OF 

may it be avoided? This method should 
be followed with various experiences. 
As you can easily understand, the ex- 
ercise develops far more than imagina- 
tion. It teaches reason, judgment, 
self-control, and that thoughtful intel- 
ligent care of the self which is the 
happy medium between brutal selfish- 
ness and base self-abnegation. 

Another helpful exercise is the fol- 
lowing: Recall some attractive land- 
scape that you have seen. Paint from 
memory a picture of it: Suppose it 
was a running brook in the mountains. 
Remember the rocks at the shore, the 
trees with their low hanging branches, 
the cows that used to stand knee deep 
in the water at noon. Call to memory 
the twitter of birds in the foliage, the 
hoarse cawing of the crows in the not 
distant pines, the occasional lowing of 
a cow in the adjoining field. Hear the 
laughter of the boys as they come for 
an early evening plunge in the cool 
still water of the near-by mill pond. 

94 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

Smell again in imagination the odor 
of the earth, the trees; the wild flow- 
ers, the fresh cut hay in the near-by 
meadow. Go through it all minutely, 
resolutely. Don't omit any detail. 

Then begin on the creative phase of 
the imagination. Paint a picture in 
your mind, first, say a landscape — a 
view of a high mountain on the right, 
a great tree on the left, between the 
two a verdure clad hillside, beyond a 
lake, above a blue sky, low upon which 
hangs the setting sun. Add all the 
details which I have not space to enu- 
merate. 

Compose many pictures like this, 
taking time to put in every little bush 
and rock and cloud. Unless you make 
the picture vivid and complete, you will 
miss the real benefit of the exercise. 
Every picture ever painted has been 
thus elaborated in the imagination of 
the artist before it was objectified upon 
the canvas. 

Next add action to your picture. 

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SECRETS OF 

Upon the lake is a little sailboat con- 
taining a merry party. How many? 
How do they look? How are they 
dressed, etc.? Suddenly a squall comes 
up. The boat capsizes. Another boat 
puts out from shore and rescues the 
unfortunates. And so on. 

One of the most interesting and val- 
uable of exercises for the imagination 
is this: You are reading a book of 
fiction, and have reached, let us say, 
the end of the third chapter. Now sit 
down and write out of your own imag- 
ination a sequel to the story from the 
point at which you stopped reading. 
Who is going to marry whom? How is 
the villain to be punished? What is to 
become of the adventuress and so on. 
Write another sequel at the end of the 
fourth chapter. At the end of the 
fifth, the eighth, the tenth chapters do 
the same thing. 

Now in this exercise, while the inci- 
dental literary practice is most valu- 
able, the main point is to train the im- 

96 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

agination. You should therefore think, 
imagine more than you write, setting 
out the rest of the story as you imagine 
it in brief simple terms and yet ex- 
tended enough to be clear. Take much 
time. Better to work out one good, 
ingenious sequel in five hours than to 
spend twice that amount of time in 
doing hurried, blurred and incomplete 
work. 

Lastly make up an entire story. Im- 
agine your hero — if you like, a heroine. 
Develop your situation, and bring mat- 
ters to a logical termination. It is 
best training for the mind (for all the 
other faculties' as well as for the imag- 
ination) not to put the story into writ- 
ing until it is completed in thought. 
Some of the most successful story 
writers follow this method, never com- 
mitting the story to writing until it 
has been fully elaborated in the imag- 
ination. The best plan is to first block 
out in the imagination the general plot 
of the story. Then go over it again 

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SECRETS OF 

and again, elaborating the situations 
and adding details, until the whole story 
seems like an occurrence in your own 
personal experience. 

Then write it out, making no special 
attempt at literary form, but striving 
only for clearness and exactness of 
description and detail. You may then 
make a second copy or even a third, 
if you like, with every writing trying 
to gain a more and more clear mental 
picture of the personages, scenes, and 
occurrences which make up your story. 

A few hours a week devoted to study 
along lines which I have here sketched, 
will do wonders, not only in cultivating 
the power of imagination, but in devel- 
oping every desirable quality of mind. 



98 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 



VIL 

HOW TO CONCENTRATE THE 
ATTENTION. 

Attention makes the genius. — Will- 
mot. 

Genius is merely continued atten- 
tion. — Helvetius. 

Attention is a sure mark of the supe- 
rior genius. — Lord Chesterfield. 

Attention is the stuff that memory 
is made of. — James Russell Lowell. 

// / have made any improvement in 
the sciences it is owing more to patient 
attention than to anything else. — SiR 
Isaac Newton. 

ONCENTRATION of the 
attention is one of the 
master keys of power. 
Without it one can ac- 
complish nothing great 
or significant. The most 
perfect perceptions, the most retentive 

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SECRETS OF 

memory, the most daring and pictur- 
esque imagination — without concentra- 
tion they can effect nothing. The 
principle of concentration may be well 
illustrated by a physical comparison. 
Suppose we take a football weighing 
four ounces and propel it through the 
air by means of the charge of powder 
generally used for a projectile of four 
ounces^ weight. What effect will the 
impact of the football have? None 
whatever. But suppose we concen- 
trate the four ounces^ weight into a 
sphere of lead less than half an inch 
in diameter and put behind it the same 
propulsive force — ^what then will hap- 
pen? Now the difference between the 
football and the leaden bullet is the 
difference between diffusion and con- 
centration — the difference between the 
impingement that is harmless and that 
which is deadly. 

And so it is in the world of thought. 
The thoughts of some people are like a 
football — big, expanded by wordy 

100 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

wind, slow moving, ineffective; the 
thoughts of others are like bullets — 
concentrated, swift, direct, going 
straight to the center, without pause or 
hindrance. 

^^This one thing I do,'^ said that pro- 
found philosopher, Paul of Tarsus. 
And if we study the history of the 
world^s' master spirits we shall find 
that this has been their policy. The 
uncouth butcher who pushed Charles I. 
from the throne and established a form 
of government based on moral princi- 
ple instead of special right; the pallid, 
undersized French advocate who, in 
the hope of establishing his wild dream 
of democracy, sent the flower of French 
aristocracy walking up Dr. Guillotine^s 
stairway ; the ignorant tinker who gave 
to the world what is perhaps the great- 
est allegory in profane literature; the 
undersized plebeian Corsican adven- 
turer, who made himself master of the 
world — all these had for their motto 

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SECRETS OF 

the idea of concentration — ^This one 
thing I do/' 

Now what is meant by concentra- 
tion of the attention, or, as it is some- 
times called, the power of attention? 
You see, in the kind of language which 
I am using to you, we do not attempt 
to express things with scientific pre- 
cision ; for that means the use not only 
of many, many words, but the intro- 
duction of many new, and to us, un- 
necessary words. So for our purpose 
we may use the terms, concentration, 
power of attention, concentration of 
attention, as if they meant the same 
thing — as they actually do. 

What is Concentration? 

Now what is concentration? In a 
word, concentration may be defined as 
being that state of mind in which the 
total and entire energies of the indi- 
vidual, physical as well as mental, are 
focused upon the thing he is doing or 
thinking. All actions and all thoughts 

102 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

not connected with what he is doing or 
thinking are kept out of the mind ; and 
all his forces are bent upon the task 
in hand. He who can do this has con- 
centration, has the power of attention. 
He who has not this power must ac- 
quire it before he can hope to do or be 
anything admirable or worthy in the 
world. 

Any one who has performed any 
difficult feat of strength, such as lift- 
ing a heavy weight, ^^muscling^^ him- 
self up on the horizontal bar or trying 
to make a track record at the ^^hundred 
yard dash'^ or the ^^two-twenty,'^ will 
realize how large a factor in these 
muscular performances is the mere 
fact of concentration. In these, as 
well as in a great many other so-called 
physical feats, such as jumping, marks- 
manship, shot putting and so on, the 
slightest wandering of the mind from 
the work in hand is absolutely destruc- 
tive of success. In acrobatic work, 
such as flying trapeze and flying rings, 

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SECRETS OF 

as well as in juggling and balancing, 
the same is true. Acrobatic jugglers 
and gymnasts are always masters of 
the art of attention — of concentration 
as applied to their special feats. 

Attention Largely a Negative Act. 

Now concentration is largely a nega- 
tive process; it depends as much upon 
what you do not do, as upon what 
you do. 

To take an example: You sit down 
to write a difficult letter. The trolley 
car whizzes by with its villainous 
^^bang-bang.^^ You are suddenly re- 
minded that you should have gone down 
town to get that book your wife 
wanted. But there^s the letter. You 
turn back to it. You write another 
line or two, and then — suddenly you 
hear the excited bark of little Fido, 
the Scotch terrier. You go to the win- 
dow and look out. Nothing the mat- 
ter — only another terrier not quite so 
Scotch across the street. You read 

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MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

back a few lines of your letter and 
start again. You don't quite know 
what to say. Your eye wanders round 
the room. Ah, yes, that suit to be 
pressed. You attend to this matter. 
Then back to your letter. And so on. 
A half hour has passed, and the letter 
is only begun. Now this is a fair ex- 
ample of the lack of concentration — 
of a wandering mind. And such a 
habit of thought is an absolute bar to 
any achievement that is helpful either 
to one's self or to the world at large. 

And how shall this tendency be over- 
come? By what means may we gain 
the power of bringing every faculty of 
the mind to bear upon the task of the 
moment, without allowing any of our 
thought or attention to wander into 
other directions. 

It is very simple— simple, but not at 
first easy. Merely refuse to let the 
mind wander. Be the master of your 
mind — of yourself. Remember what 
Milton says: ^^He who is master of 

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SECRETS OF 

himself is king of men/^ But of course 
you want more specific directions than 
this. It is easy to say, ^^concentrate^' ; 
but you need to know exactly how to 
concentrate. 

Remembering that attention is 
merely the act of applying the mind, 
the entire mind, to the task in hand, 
you will understand that the faithful 
practice of the various exercises advised 
in previous chapters of this series can- 
not but be of the greatest value as aids 
to the development of the power of 
attention. Every effort of the mind, 
whether to perceive, to recollect, to 
associate, to imagine, or to judge, must 
necessarily involve a concentration of 
the faculties of the mind upon that 
particular act, whatever it may be. 
So, first of all, I may assure you that 
the practices I have advised, if you 
have faithfully followed them, will 
have by this time notably increased 
your power of attention. As a matter 
of fact, such assurance on my part is 

106 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

superfluous; for if you have exercised 
as I have directed, you, yourself, will 
already have noted a marked change 
in this direction as well as in others'. 

Do not allow yourself to overlook the 
fact that whatever may be the mental 
act in which you are engaged, the act 
of attention is necessarily involved. 
There is no faculty of the mind in 
which you have so many opportunities 
of exercise. 

So the first exercise I shall advise is 
that you go over carefully all the meth- 
ods which I have detailed in the chapters 
on perception, memory, association, im- 
agination, and judgment, making a spe- 
cial effort while doing them not to allow 
the mind to wander for a moment from 
the task in hand. This alone, if per- 
sistently and conscientiously done, 
would insure you a high degree of this 
splendid intellectual accomplishment. 

One of the best methods I know for 
him or her who would begin at the 

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SECRETS OF 

beginning and learn to concentrate the 
attention is the following: — 

Select some task, which, while simple, 
requires accuracy and close attention. 
A sum in addition or multiplication is 
well adapted for this purpose. Now 
settle yourself down to this; resolving 
that, until it is finished and verified, 
you will not allow the mind to take in, 
or at any rate hold, any other idea or 
picture whatever. 

While adding or multiplying the fig- 
ures, you will suddenly find that there 
pops into the mind some other idea — 
the clang of a bell (fire or the ambu- 
lance) ; a shouting on the street (a 
fight or a runaway) ; a thought of the 
landlady, your tailor, your grocer. 

Now just here is where you are re- 
quired to make the essential act of con- 
centration—of trained attention. Shut 
the door on these outside thoughts. 
Turn back to your work. For a time, 
at any rate, you cannot prevent the 
intrusion of extraneous thoughts; you 

108 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

can, however, resolutely refuse to allow 
them to remain in the mind. At first 
they will come, insistently, again and 
again, beating at the door of your con- 
sciousness. ^'Let me in; let me in,'' 
they cry. "Never mind those stupid 
figures. I am more interesting. I 
am more important to you. You must, 
you ought, youVe got to think of me. 
Let me in.'' "But no," says the trained 
mind. "This one thing I do. One 
thing at a time. I can think of but 
one object at once ; and if I let you into 
my mind I can do justice neither to 
you nor to my task. Avaunt." But 
the haunters do not retreat so easily. 
They return and return with incredible 
persistency. They pound at the door 
of your mind. They insist on intrud- 
ing, and occasionally they get in. 

Then — don't worry or fret about 
them. Don't let them bother or excite 
you. Don't be discouraged. Simply 
bring the attention back to the original 
subject of thought. As Dr. William 

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SECRETS OF 

James, Professor of Psychology in 
Harvard, has said: ^^Effort of atten- 
tion is the essential phenomenon of 
will." 

Another exercise for concentration 
of the attention is simply to count. 
Count one hundred beginning with 2 
and adding three each time, e. g., 2, 5, 
8, 11, 14, etc. Or, beginning with 2, 
add 6, 7, 9, 13, or 17 each time, e. g., 
2, 8, 14, 20, etc. ; 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, etc. ; 

2, 11, 20, 29, 38, etc. Or, beginning 
with 100, count downward, subtracting 

3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 17, or 19 each time, 
e. g., 100, 97, 94, 91, etc. All this may 
seem very simple. But you will find 
that, unless you already have a very 
finely developed power of attention, 
you will not at first be able to complete 
the hundred in any of these exercises 
without the entrance into the mind of 
vagrant, extraneous thoughts. By the 
time you are able to add or subtract 
freely in this way without any wan- 
dering of the attention, you may con- 

110 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

gratulate yourself on having acquired 
to an unusual degree the power of con- 
centrated attention. 

For the next exercise you will need 
about three dozen large sized blank 
cards: the best size is about three by 
five inches. Upon one of these cards 
write a number of four figures, such 
as 4357. Upon several others write 
four figures arranged in a square, as 
47 and under that 93. Then on sev- 
eral cards write six figures, as 457, 
under which you place 236, or figures 
such as 47, 52, and 96 under each other. 
Other cards should contain from seven 
to ten numbers in a simple column. 

Prepare a dozen of these cards. 
Now to use them: Shuffle the cards, 
face downward. Draw one, give a 
rapid glance at its face, and then re- 
peat aloud the numbers that you saw, 
first in the order in which they were 
written, i. e., 4357, then backward, 
7534. Or, to take another card, repeat 
47, 52, 96, in the order in which they 

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SECRETS OF 

appear. Then backward, 96, 52, 47; 
then go down the units column, 7, 2, 6, 
then up the tens column, 9, 5, 4, and 
so on. 

After a few hours of practice such 
as this, you will begin to know the fig- 
ures on each card by memory. This, 
while a good thing in one way, makes 
the exercise of less value as a training 
in concentration ; so it will be necessary 
for you to make up another set. In 
the second set make a larger number 
of figures on each card, say something 
like 947, 853, 201, under each other, 
making a square of nine figures, or 
94, 78, 53, 20, 16 in a column, or a 
line of twelve or fifteen single figures, 
arranged as for an example in addi- 
tion. 

After a period of practice with these 
cards you will find again that you are 
learning to remember the numbers from 
previous glances rather than from the 
one last glance. Then it is time to 
make another set. This time make 

112 



MENTAL SUPRE MACY. 

your figure squares still larger. Run 
them up to squares like this: 4702, 
8895, 6374, 9765, etc. ; or make collec- 
tions of numbers hke 470, 238, 956, 
etc., making a list of perhaps five or 
six lines of three figures each. In my 
own experience along this line I have 
known of students who could remem- 
ber with unerring fidelity a figure 
square consisting of sixty-four figures 
arranged in a square, as 48964325, 
93842739, etc. It seems incredible; 
but it is entirely true that, after a 
time, it is quite as easy to recall a 
mental picture of sixty-four figures as 
of twelve or sixteen. 

It is perhaps an improvement on the 
above described practice to have the 
assistance of another who will shuffle 
the cards and exhibit one for a fleeting 
second. Where you can get some one 
to work with you, it is a good plan for 
the assistant to read a few lines of 
prose — say about twenty words at first 
— ^which you afterwards repeat from 

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SECRETS OF 

memory. Or he may call out a list of 
words or figures to which you listen 
and which you afterward repeat. 

And now for the last and most im- 
portant exercise which I have to sug- 
gest. And I may say right here that 
if you practice persistently and con- 
scientiously you will acquire the power 
of concentration to a greater degree 
and in a shorter time than by all other 
methods combined. This exercise, like 
most things that are great and impor- 
tant, is also very simple. It is this: 
Make every detail a work of art. 
Think this over. It means that you 
do everything — the most trivial acts — 
with strict and exclusive attention. 

Are you lacing your boots? There 
is a way in which that homely little 
act can be performed more rapidly, 
easily, and satisfactorily than it can 
in any other way. Standing, walking, 
dressing one's self, writing, shaking 
hands, shaving, handling knife and 
fork, opening a book — all these and a 

114 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

million other trivial acts — if done con- 
sciously and attentively, afford a train- 
ing in concentration which it is abso- 
lutely impossible to gain in any other 
way. When asked by some inquisitive 
reporter the secret of his success, ''Sun- 
set'^ Cox replied: ^'I think it is my 
attention to detail. I pride myself 
upon the way I can wrap up a paper 
parcel/^ This is the true spirit — ''the 
pride of success/' Make every detail 
a work of art. 

And then the gain ! You develop not 
only the power of concentration. You 
develop perception, memory, association, 
imagination, will. And this is one of the 
most satisfactory results of the prac- 
tice of mental training — in developing 
any one faculty you are at the same 
time developing others. But as re- 
gards concentration, when you are 
training that, you are at the same time 
training all the other powers of the 
mind. 



115 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 



VIIL 

PSYCHO-PHYSICAL DEVELOP- 
MENT. 




HE human body is one- 



an entity. In ordinary 
conversation we refer to 
the individual as if he or 
she were composed of 
three different elements, 
the physical, the mental, and the spirit- 
ual. In reality, however, these three are 
merely different phases of one form 
of activity. The spirit is the great 
omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, 
eternal thing which animates both 
mind and body. Mind and body in 
turn are merely representations of the 
action of the spirit. In the perfectly 
organized individual spirit, mind, and 
body would act together perfectly with- 
out friction, without effort, without 
the necessity for any special training. 

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SECRETS OF 

There are, in fact, a few exceptional 
cases in which spirit, mind, and body 
act with some degree of harmony — in 
which the pure impersonal spirit (the 
Sat, the Atman, as the wise Hindoos 
call it) acts in such a manner as to 
largely dominate the thoughts, feelings, 
and movements of the individual. 
These people we call geniuses — ^the 
shining ones of the ages. 

This intimate interaction of body, 
mind, and spirit is the mystic "at-one- 
ment'^ so frequently referred to in the 
writings of the old philosophers, Egyp- 
tian, Hindoo, Chinese, and Hebraic. 
Such harmonious action once achieved, 
the individual is in immediate posses- 
sion of health, strength, energy, beauty, 
and expressiveness 

As Browning writes in "Paracel- 
sus" : — 

^^ There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and 
to know 

118 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendor may 

escape. 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be withoutJ^ 

A wiser teacher than Browning 
said: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of 
Heaven and His righteousness; and all 
these things shall be added unto you/^ 
The Kingdom of Heaven as used in 
this and other cases by Jesus undoubt- 
edly refers to this mystic "at-one-menV' 
between spirit, mind, and body. "As 
a man thinketh in his heart so is he/^ 

Two Phases of Human Action. 

In every human action there are two 
distinct phases — thought and motion. 
Thoughts lie hidden in the gray cav- 
erns of the brain. They are potential, 
latent. Motions are physical, obvi- 
ous. Every thought, every impulse, 
every emotion has its ellipsis in some 
action of the muscles; and when such 

119 



SECRETS OP 

thought, impulse, or emotion is per- 
fectly expressed in muscular activity, 
we have the ideal human being. In 
this connection it may be appropriate 
to introduce two brief quotations from 
the writings of Professor William 
James of Harvard College, 

He says: "There is no more valu- 
able precept in moral education than 
this — if we wish to conquer undesir- 
able emotional tendencies in ourselves, 
we must assiduously, and in the first 
instance cold-bloodedly, go through the 
outward movements of those contrary 
dispositions we prefer to cultivate. . 
. . . Smooth the brow, brighten the 
eye, contract the dorsal rather than the 
ventral aspect of the frame, and speak 
in the major key, pass the genial com- 
pliment and your heart must be frigid 
indeed if it does not gradually thaw.'' 

And in another place the same au- 
thor has said: "No reception without 
reaction, no impression without correl- 
ative expression,^ — this is the great 

120 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

maxim which the teacher ought never 
to forget. An impression which sim- 
ply flows in at the pupiFs eyes or ears, 
and in no way modifies the active life, 
is an impression gone to waste. It is 
physiologically incomplete. It leaves 
no fruits behind it in the way of capac- 
ity acquired. Even as mere impres- 
sion it fails to produce its proper effect 
upon the memory; for to remain fully 
among the acquisitions of this latter 
faculty, it must be wrought into the 
whole cycle of our operations. Its 
motor consequences are what clinch it. 
Some effect, due to it in the way of 
activity, must return to the mind in 
the form of the sensation of having 
acted, and connect itself with the im- 
pression. The most durable impres- 
sions, in fact, are those on account of 
which we speak or act, or else are in- 
wardly convulsed.'^ 

Of all the many evil effects of what 
we call civilization, the most blasting is 
that its general influence is to break up 

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SECRETS OF 

the close interrelation between thought 
and motion. In order to live the con- 
ventional life of the well-behaved man 
or woman one is compelled to con- 
stantly stifle and deny desires, im- 
pulses, thoughts, and such denial inev- 
itably leads to injury of mind and body. 

Relation of Mind and Body. 

Mental activity simply means cer- 
tain chemical and mechanical changes' 
occurring in nervous matter. These 
changes occur not only in the nervous 
matter of the brain, but also in the 
nerves which cause muscular action. 

This is a large subject and it is 
quite impossible within the limits of 
a work such as this to make it clear. 
It may be said at once, however, that 
each emotion and each thought has its 
corresponding output along the motor 
nerves — that each emotion and each 
thought has a muscular picture which 
is peculiar to itself. Now, if the mus- 
cles' be free and flexible, the thought 

122 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

which occupies the higher nerve cen- 
ters will be translated by a certain 
position of the muscles. In other 
words, a person marked by such 
peculiarity will be expressive and in- 
teresting. All the great singers, actors, 
and orators — all those most successful 
on the stage, in politics or in society — 
have been distinguished by this pecul- 
iar expressiveness. 

In order to be expressive several 
things are requisite. The body must 
be erect, the joints and hinges of the 
body, as explained in previous chap- 
ters, being each in its proper place. 
There must have been acquired the 
habit of keeping the muscles in a state 
of relaxation and receptivity. Among 
the many exercises which the writer 
has employed for the purpose of devel- 
oping this power are the few given 
herewith. A careful study and prac- 
tice of these exercises can hardly fail 
to result in an increase in general 
expressiveness, health, and personality. 

123 



SECRETS OF 

Exercise No. 1. 

(Anticipation, pleasurable expecta- 
tion,) 

Imagine that some one is coming 
toward you whom you very much 
wished to see. You would naturally 
lean forward to greet him, extending 
one or both hands and smiling. Now, 
holding this idea, this mental picture, 
before the mind, allow the flexible body 
to show it forth in gesture, facial ex- 
pression, and a few words of greeting 
spoken aloud. Exactly what you do 
does not in the least matter. Simply 
hold the thought so intently that for 
the moment you accept the imagined 
situation as real, and let the body go. 

This exercise may be varied infi- 
nitely by changing the picture, always, 
however, imagining a situation such as 
will produce a feeling of pleasurable 
anticipation. 



124 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

Exercise No. 2. 

(Horror.) 

Imagine that you are looking at 
some dangerous animal (a snake, if 
you are a man: if a woman, a mouse 
will answer every purpose) that you 
cannot escape. You naturally draw 
back in horror. 

Like the former exercise, in this you 
are to forget the body entirely — to let 
it go — putting all your attention upon 
the imagined situation. In this exer- 
cise, as in the preceding, any situation 
may be invented which will induce the 
thought of horror. 

Exercise No. 3. 

(Joy.) 

Imagine some situation which would 
awaken in you a state of joy and yield 
the body up to the feeling. 



125 



SECRETS OF 

Exercise No. Jf. 

(Guilt.) 

Try to imagine that you have com- 
mitted some crime, say, for instance, 
theft. Imagine that you are brought 
before a judge and that you are plead- 
ing guilty and asking for mercy. 
Allow this thought to permeate mind 
and body, showing by gestures and 
attitude your appreciation of the situa- 
tion. 

Exercise No. 5. 
(Accusation.) 

Imagine that some one has com- 
mitted a crime against you; that you 
are facing him before a tribunal. 
Make your accusation, if necessary, in 
words, taking at the same time the 
attitude appropriate to this emotional 
state. 



126 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

Exercise No. 6. 
(Depression.) 

Imagine such circumstances as 
would produce in you a feeling of de- 
pression and yield the body to it. 

These exercises, although they may 
seem unusual, have powerful and far- 
reaching results. That this is true 
any one may prove to himself in a week 
of faithful practice. It must be un- 
derstood, however, that they cannot 
be properly practiced until the body 
has' been made erect and thoroughly 
flexible by a persevering practice of 
the exercises described in preceding 
chapters. 

As to mental images, literature and 
poetry afford many suggestions. David 
at the bier of Absalom, Hero over the 
body of Leander, Socrates drinking the 
cup of hemlock, Luther on the way to 
Worms, Hamlet before his father's 
ghost, Robinson Crusoe when he dis- 
covers the footprint in the sand. Rip 

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SECRETS OF 

Van Winkle on awakening from his 
long sleep, Mark Antony in his speech 
to the Romans, Regulus parting from 
his wife and children — these and many 
other scenes afford vivid dramatic sit- 
uations. 

In all this work the great point is 
to subordinate the body, to make the 
body obedient, flexible, acquiescent, 
and interpretative of the mind. Those 
who are interested in any form of ex- 
pressive art, dramatic, lyrical, or 
scenic, will find these simple exercises 
of value. 



128 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 



IX. 

THE LOST ARTS OF CHILDHOOD. 

Except ye he converted and become 
as little children ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 
18, 3. 

For of such is the kingdom of heaven. 
— Matthew 19, 14. 

HE more deeply the man 
of science studies the 
sayings attributed to 
Jesus, the Seer of Judea, 
the more profoundly is 
he impressed not only by 
the brilliant intellect and wonderful 
oratory of Jesus, but by his marvelous 
insight into subjects which were in his 
time unknown even to the most lucid 
thinkers of ancient times. 

In the history of the race two thou- 
sand years is not a very long time, and 

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SECRETS OF 

previous to the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era there had been accomplished 
along lines of philosophical, physical, 
and cosmological research much more 
than, with all our boasted erudition, has 
been done since. In fact, some of our 
most striking discoveries are merely 
corroborations of knowledge of the 
Brahmins, the Chinese, the Phoenicians, 
and other of the ancient peoples who 
lived thousands of years before the 
alleged appearance of Jesus of Naz- 
areth. 

How much of this ancient knowl- 
edge Jesus possessed it is impossible to 
say — ^probably most if not all. One 
thing is certain : Some things he knew 
and said, which, so far as we know, 
were entirely original and iconoclastic. 
And one of these things, entirely new 
then (and almost entirely new now, 
for that matter) was to the effect that 
in child study we should find the key 
to the kingdom of heaven. 

Now as I have explained elsewhere 

130 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

in these Sermons of a Scientist, the 
Kingdom of Heaven (or the Kingdom 
of God) is not a place where good peo- 
ple go when they die. The Kingdom 
of Heaven is a state of mind, of Spirit 
— that state in which spirit, therefore 
mind, therefore body, are all three in 
harmony with the Great Oversoul, and 
with His laws. 

For us who are adults, who for 
three, four, or five decades have been 
guilty of the thousand, thousand 
crimes, physical, mental, spiritual, 
incidental to commonplace living — ^for 
us it is necessary to be reborn to be 
radically changed in spirit, therefore 
in mind and body, before we can enter 
the Kingdom of Heaven, the physical 
realm of peace, rest, and power. So 
Jesus said to the disciples: ^Terily I 
say unto you, except ye be converted 
and become as little children, ye shall 
not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'^ 
By which He meant exactly what He 
did when He said to Nicodemus : *^Ex- 

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SECRETS OF 

cept a man be born again, he cannot 
see the Kingdom of God/^ 

Of the many millions that have, with 
close attention and deep reverence, read 
the words I have quoted, few, if any, 
have seen the clear, profound, prac- 
tical wisdom of the statement of Jesus 
that only the man, the woman, who 
became as a little child, could enter into 
the realm of peace and power. 

And now let us analyze a little. 
What is there about the child which we 
should emulate? What characteristics 
has the child, unpossessed by the adult 
which when developed in the adult will 
give entrance into the kingdom of God? 

Mind you, it is not stated that chil- 
dren are in the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Nor can they be. They lack the actual 
knowledge, the experience, the poise. 
But it is in the experience, the hard 
and bitter experience which develops 
poise and power, that man loses the 
simplicity, trustfulness, and tenderness 
of childhood. It is when, in addition 

132 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

to his adult powers, he achieves the lost 
arts and powers of childhood, that he 
enters the Kingdom of Heaven. 

What Are the Lost Arts op 
Childhood? 

Let us consider first some of the 
physical characteristics of normal 
childhood. The healthy child is re- 
markable for his erect body, his up- 
turned face, his clear and far-reaching 
voice, the ease and grace of his move- 
ments, his wonderful endurance. That 
these are among the normal pow- 
ers of the average healthy child may be 
determined by a few minutes of close 
observation upon any playground. A 
moment^s thought will show how rare 
are such powers among adults. 

The healthy child is erect. There- 
fore the chest is high and expanded, the 
body is carried like an erect column 
and the breathing is slow and deep. 
This gives the only conditions under 
which the normal tone of voice in song 

133 



SECRETS OF 

or speech can be reproduced. The 
erect carriage means that the joints 
and muscles of the body are in their 
normal and mechanical relation to each 
other. 

So we have in the normal child move- 
ments which are at once rapid, grace- 
ful, and economical — so economical of 
vital force that the child^s endurance 
has passed into a proverb. Children 
will keep on romping for hours at a 
time without fatigue. But an adult 
who joins in their play will usually be 
tired out in ten or fifteen minutes. 
Why is this? Because the child moves 
properly and the adult does not move 
properly. Because bodily movement 
is one of the lost arts of childhood. 

A Master op the Difficult Art 
OF Rest. 

And then the ability to rest. The 
tired child throws himself down on the 
couch or floor or ground and rests. 
The tired adult, on the other hand, 

134 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

often fidgets, tosses, fumes, and wor- 
ries because he can't sleep. Then his 
sleep, when it comes, is not restful; 
and he awakens after eight or more 
hours quite as fatigued as when he 
went to bed. Few adults have retained 
from childhood the power to rest. For 
the power to rest is another one of the 
lost arts of childhood; and he who 
would enter the Kingdom of Heaven, 
the realm of peace, must be a master 
of the difficult art of rest. 

The world is full of men and women 
whose most ardent ambition is to suc- 
ceed in some art — music, painting, act- 
ing, writing. And out of the multi- 
tude who drudge laboriously, unrest- 
ingly at their chosen task how few 
succeed? 

But — study the little children. 
Watch them at play, when they believe 
themselves unobserved. They are play- 
ing ^^house,'' ^^school,'' "church,^' and 
so on. On no stage in the world will 
you find acting so true, so finished, so 

135 



SlJCRETS OP 

perfect an exposition of the aetor^s con- 
ception of his part From a purely 
technical standpoint, the dramatic 
work of the average healthy, intelligent 
child is beyond criticism — it is simply 
perfect. 

And then the child's moral and 
spiritual qualities. By nature he is 
absolutely truthful — truthful both in 
the sense of seeing the truth and of tell- 
ing it — until he is seduced into lying 
by fear and bad example. 

Michelet, that deep and tender phi- 
losopher, has said: '^No consecrated 
absurdity of mankind would have sur- 
vived one generation had not the man 
silenced the objection of the child.^' 

Do you remember the first lies they 
told you? How strange it seemed for 
people, people whom perhaps you loved 
and feared and worshiped with the 
pure, white hot intensity of the child — 
how strange for them to do that! 

Soon, however, you learned to do it 
yourself, learned the fatal utility, the 

136 



MENTAL SUPREMACY . 

convenience of the lie. And so the 
angel with the flaming sword waved 
you away from the Eden of Uncon- 
querable Innocence, and only after 
many years of wandering in waste 
places, only by being born again, may 
you re-enter Eden, the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 

And, with the truthfulness of child- 
hood, the simplicity, the kindliness, 
the democracy, the independence — all 
of these are among the lost powers of 
childhood and all of these we must 
achieve if we would possess the highest 
powers of body, mind, and spirit. 

^^Except ye become as a little child'^ 
no true power, physical, artistic, intel- 
lectual, spiritual, is possible. To him 
or her who in simplicity accepts the 
teaching, the kingdom is close at hand ; 
and "a little child shall lead them.^^ 
The truly great of earth are not the 
ones most highly polished by conven- 
tional educational methods. On the 
other hand, they are often the lonely 

137 



MENTAL SUPREMACY. 

and the neglected. They have starved 
in garrets and dreamed in hovels ; from 
squalid prison cells they have sent forth 
^^thoughts that breathe^'; under the 
silent stars they have conceived 
thoughts as high as the stars them- 
selves. They are those who ^^through 
great tribulation ^^ have been born 
again, and who, as little children, have 
entered into the realm of peace, wis- 
dom, love, and power, the mystic King- 
dom of Heaven. 



138 



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THE NAUTILUS 

is a monthly efficiency tonic for mind, body, and 
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